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2026-09-22

Floors measured on an architect's permit set, too

An architect's permit set prints its scale under each drawing instead of in the title block. BidCraft now reads it there, checks it against the dimensions on the sheet, and measures the floors.

Floors measured on an architect's permit set, too

Floors have been measured straight off the drawings on a designer's CAD set for a little while now. On an architect's permit set they came back empty — every room found, every tile picked out, and not one floor with a number on it.

The reason was the scale. A designer prints it once, in the title block. An architect usually doesn't: the title block says nothing, or says AS NOTED, and each drawing gets its own scale on the line under its title — the overall floor plan at 1/8", the enlarged plans at 1/4", a wall detail in the corner at 1 1/2". There was no scale where BidCraft looked for one, so it had nothing to measure with.

What changed

  • The scale is read under each drawing's title. And because one sheet can carry an enlarged plan and a detail at two different scales, each room is measured at the scale of the drawing it's actually in — not whichever one the sheet happens to print first.
  • The scale is checked against the dimensions on the sheet. A plan is covered in printed dimensions, and each one sits on the line it measures. When dozens of them agree on how long a foot is, that's the drawing's real scale. If a printed scale ever disagrees with them, the dimensions win. If a sheet prints no scale at all, its dimensions are enough on their own.
  • If there's no way to tell, the floor says so. The floor is left for you to fill in, rather than measured at a guess.

So on a fresh upload of a permit set, bedroom, bath, office and powder floors now come back measured. How they arrive depends on how big the drawing is:

  • Drawn at 1/4" = 1'-0" or larger, with walls all the way round — filled in and marked Measured from the drawings, the same as on a designer's set.
  • Measured on a smaller drawing — the 1/8" overall floor plan most permit sets lead with — it arrives as a suggestion with a Use button, still marked as measured. At that size a doorway is a hairline, and a bath can pick up the closet behind it, so it's your call.
  • A room whose outline runs out into an open hall — a foyer, a great room, a flex space — still comes back as a suggestion to check, too.

One thing worth a glance

A bath that opens into a walk-in closet through a doorway with no door drawn in it can come back measured as bath and closet together, because nothing on the plan separates the two. If a bath floor looks big for the room, that's the likely reason. Type your own number over it and yours wins.

To pick this up on a permit set you've already read, open the Plans card and choose Re-analyze documents.