How fast is automated symbol takeoff?

Result

Methodology

A 21-page commercial plan set with 53 distinct symbol types was processed end to end: import the PDF, point at each symbol from the legend, let the engine detect every instance across all sheets, then review the marked sheet symbol by symbol. Elapsed time, including that review, was 11 minutes, entirely on a laptop CPU with no GPU: the estimator’s own machine.

What one run does and doesn’t tell you

This is one 21-page set, measured once. It says nothing measured about a 400-sheet set: any larger figure on this site is a projection scaled from this run and is labelled as one. We no longer publish a “times faster” multiplier; the one we used to quote was a property of an assumed hand-counting baseline and the size of the set, not of the engine.

The assumption behind the calculator

Review here means per-symbol batch acceptance: for each symbol, the estimator scans the marked sheet and accepts or rejects that symbol’s detections, not a one-by-one confirmation of every individual mark.

The measured side is the 11 minutes: 21 pages, 53 symbol types, counted and reviewed. The home-page calculator projects from it, scaling SimplyCount’s time with both page count and symbol types. Its hand-counting baseline is an assumption we state rather than hide: about an hour per page to count and record by hand, first pass only, no second passes or rechecks. If your hand counts run faster than a page an hour, scale the projection down accordingly; the 11 minutes on our side is the measured part.

Accuracy, stated honestly

Accuracy was measured against a hand-verified ground-truth set. After review (the per-symbol accept/reject pass that is part of the workflow), the exported count matched that ground truth exactly: 100%. That is by design: review exists to catch what the engine misses, so the number you export is the number you verified. We do not publish a raw engine-recall percentage; the count that matters is the one you sign off, not one you have to take on faith. The stronger test is your own plan set: request free access and run one.

This benchmark is the one time anchor for every speed claim on this site. When the homepage says hours of hand-counting become minutes, or a multi-day takeoff becomes an afternoon, those are this benchmark restated, not separate measurements. Each symbol’s detections are reviewed and signed off by a person, and any count that isn’t fully verified is shown as a floor (≥), never dressed up as a total.