Make a room
Draw an area round a room, select it and click Make this a room in the Selection tab (or Make selected area a room in the command palette). Give it a number, name, level or zone and ceiling height, and pick its floor, wall and ceiling finish and skirting. Heights and sizes can be typed as 2.4, 2400mm or 8' 0"; a plain number is in the display unit. One-click area can make rooms straight away: tick Make rooms in its panel and each traced room is added as a numbered room, ready for its finishes.
Room quantities
For each room Takeoff Studio works out the floor and ceiling area (less any cut-outs), the perimeter, the wall area (perimeter x height less doors and windows) and the skirting (perimeter less door widths). The perimeter is the room's outer perimeter (cut-outs such as columns don't add wall), and a room inside a scale region is measured at that region's scale. Times and slope apply as everywhere else.
Doors and windows
In the room's Doors and windows list, click + Door or + Window and set how many and their width and height, e.g. 2 doors 0.9 x 2.1. They come off the wall area, and doors also come off the skirting.
Rooms tab
The Rooms tab lists every room with its quantities and finishes, then totals per finish (floor and ceiling finishes in area, wall finishes in wall area, skirting in length) and per level or zone. Filter by level, click a room to find it on the drawing, and export the room schedule and totals to Excel or CSV.
Finish lists
Open Finish lists in the Rooms tab to change the floor, wall, ceiling and skirting choices (one per line). The lists are saved with the project.
Assemblies
An assembly turns one measurement into all the items it needs. Select a markup, choose an assembly under Assemblies in the Selection tab and click Add. Presets: Stud partition, Concrete slab, Block wall and Skirting. Change the variables (e.g. Height or Spacing) right there; click Edit for the full recipe.
Formulas
Each item has a formula using Qty, Length, Area, Perimeter, Count, Height, Depth, Volume and your own variables, with + - * / ^, brackets and ceil, floor, round, min, max, abs, sqrt and if. Example: ceil(Length / Spacing) + 1 studs. On a Spacing run, Count is the number of items it places and Length (or Area) is the line (or area) it runs along. Formulas work on one unit of the markup; Times multiplies the results. Waste % is added after the formula, then Round up makes it a whole number.
Assembly results
Items (and a room's finishes) appear under their markup in the Schedule with quantities and costs, are included in the group costs, the CSV, Excel, PDF and report exports, Send to BOQ and the NRM2 bill. Save an assembly to the project library to reuse it, and save the markup as a tool to keep its assemblies in your tool library.
NRM2 bill
Schedule tab > NRM2 bill makes an Excel bill of quantities in NRM2 work-section order (11 In-situ concrete works, 14 Masonry, 28 Floor, wall, ceiling and roof finishings, 29 Decoration and so on), with item references and NRM2 units (m, m2, m3, nr, t). Amounts are live Excel formulas (Qty x Rate), as are the section totals, the Collection and the Summary, so the bill recalculates as you type rates.
Work sections
In the NRM2 dialog, pick a work section for any trade package, tag, assembly item or room finish. Auto picks one from the item's name, then its tag and trade package. Your choices are saved with the project. Rooms are billed as their finishes rather than as the room's own area. The Drawings column lists the sheets each item was measured on, using the sheet numbers from the Drawing Register where you have accepted them. Parked markups (from a changed drawing) are never billed.
