Abstract: A method is taught for determining construction quantity takeoff information of a drawing representative of a construction project having a plurality of information units including at least units of construction project information and information regarding a plurality of items associated with a drawing in an information gathering system. The method includes applying an indicia representative of a selected information unit of the plurality of information units to the information gathering system and determining the selected information unit by the information gathering system in accordance with the applied indicia. Indexing the selected information unit and storing the indexed information unit in an indexed takeoff base are also included. Image data representative of the drawing is provided and the image data is indexed for storing the image data in the indexed database in association with indexed information unit.

Abstract: A method is taught for determining construction quantity takeoff information of a drawing representative of a construction project having a plurality of information units including at least units of construction project information and information regarding a plurality of items associated with a drawing in an information gathering system. The method includes applying an indicia representative of a selected information unit of the plurality of information units to the information gathering system and determining the selected information unit by the information gathering system in accordance with the applied indicia. Indexing the selected information unit and storing the indexed information unit in an indexed takeoff base are also included. Image data representative of the drawing is provided and the image data is indexed for storing the image data in the indexed database in association with indexed information unit.

Abstract: A method for performing a construction quantity takeoff estimate of a drawing representative of a construction project having a plurality of items includes applying first vocal indicia representative of a selected item of the plurality of items to a voice recognition system and producing and first electrical signals representative of the first vocal indicia by the voice recognition system. The selected item is first determined by the voice recognition system in accordance with the first electrical signals. Second vocal indicia representative of a quantity of the selected item are applied to the voice recognition system and second electrical signals representative of the quantity of the selected item are produced. The quantity of the selected item is second determined by the voice recognition system in accordance with the second electrical signals. The takeoff estimate is performed in accordance with the first and second determining.