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- Trainer's Corner September, 2009
- By Wally Jurina
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LiveCount™, Accubid's new on-screen takeoff tool, provides the ability to perform measurement takeoffs electronically from digital drawings directly into Accubid Estimating and ChangeOrder programs. In performing measurement takeoffs such as feeders, branch wiring, etc., the scales displayed on the digital drawings are not necessarily the scale of the drawing image. The drawing image(s) we receive may be scanned images, which alter the scales of .tiff, .pdf, etc drawings, or they may display an incorrect scale, or the scale may not be shown on the drawing. Therefore, we strongly encourage you to validate any scale you set to the scale displayed on the digital drawing before continuing with any measurements.
The validation or calibration procedure is invoked by selecting the Calibrate button on the Drawing Scale Edit dialog as illustrated below.
The following steps illustrate the calibrating process:
Step 1: On the digital drawing, pick out known dimensions such as a 4' lighting fixture or 3' doorway or a specified dimension. (Note: the larger the dimension, the better the accuracy). Zoom the drawing as needed for optimum view of calibrating dimension then press the Calibrate button.
Step 2: The Drawing Scale Edit dialog disappears and a hint Scale Calibration – Point 1 window appears. Select the first point as illustrated below (move the hint window or scroll and zoom the drawing as needed). For this calibration example, we will use the 6’ doorway as the known dimension on this digital drawing.
Step 3: After releasing the mouse on the 1st dimension point, the first hint box disappears and the second hint window appears. Now, move the hint window or scroll and zoom the drawing as needed, then click the 2nd dimension point as illustrated below. You can press the window’s Back button to re-do the 1st point or press the Cancel button to cancel calibration.
Step 4: When you click on the 2nd dimension point, the second hint window disappears and the Drawing Scale Edit dialog will re-appear. Enter the known actual distance and actual units as illustrated.
Step 5: At this point, the calibration is complete and you can click OK in the Drawing Scale Edit dialog ,and proceed to measure a feeder, etc. It is however recommended that you normalize this calibration to a standard scale by selecting the Normalize button as illustrated. Then click OK to close the Drawing Scale Edit dialog and return to the drawing.
This scale validation procedure for each digital drawing will help to reduce any measurement errors for feeders, branch wiring, etc. As well, this same calibration procedure can be used on any selected detail section(s) on digital drawings.