Overview
Upload your construction drawings or site photos and KonstructIQ reads them, extracts the work involved, and measures quantities where it can — telling you which sheet each number came from when a drawing is available. This guide covers the whole path from upload to a finished scope.
Step 1: Start the estimate and pick your method
On your Home page, click Estimate. (From inside a project, go to Estimate → Create with AI.)
On the Select Method screen, check Catalogs — these are the pricing catalogs the AI can match items against.
Set Project Class to Residential or Commercial so the AI uses the right labor rates.
Under Upload Plans or Photos, click Select.
Step 2: Upload your plans or photos
Drag your files onto Drag & drop plans & photos, or click Add from Device.
Wait for the checkmark next to each file before continuing. Use the trash icon to remove a file.
Limits: up to 10 PDFs, 50 MB each. Larger PDFs up to 400 MB are split automatically. Up to 20 photos, 10 MB each.
Tip: upload the sheets that describe the work you're pricing. A full set is fine, but a set that's missing the trade you care about — say the structural sheets — will produce assumptions instead of measurements. The AI tells you when sheets it expected are missing.
Photos vs. drawings: site photos and inspiration images work the same way, but they don't carry scale the way a dimensioned drawing does — the AI can read finishes and materials from a photo (cabinetry style, flooring, fixtures) but has to assume dimensions unless you state them. Add exact measurements to your instructions when a photo is your only source for an item. Mixing plans and photos in the same upload is fine — the AI treats plans as the source for measured quantities and photos as the source for finishes and site conditions.
Step 3: Focus the extraction (optional but worth it)
Scope Focus chips — Painting, Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC, Framing, Roofing, Demolition, Concrete, Metals — narrow the extraction to the trades you actually price.
Selecting a chip writes a detailed, trade-specific instruction into Custom Instructions for you. For Framing, for example, it tells the AI to identify wall types from partition plans and wall type schedules, capture stud size, gauge, spacing and wall heights, include rough openings, and explicitly note anything it can't find.
You can edit that text, add your own instructions, or dictate them with the microphone. Use Save to keep a set of instructions you reuse.
Leave Scope Focus empty if you want the AI to extract every trade it can find.
When you're ready, click Generate Scope.
Step 4: Answer the focusing questions
The AI takes a first pass — you'll see Scanning Your Plans while it works through Scanning Your Plan Set, Understanding Your Drawings, and Focusing the Extraction.
It then posts a short summary of what it found in the Assistant panel — how many sheets, what kind of project, which sheets carry which information, and any assumptions it's making. Read this. It's where the AI tells you if something is missing.
If it needs a decision from you, it asks a small number of multiple-choice questions, each one citing the trade and sheet it relates to — for example "Are the structural framing plans available for review, or should framing be estimated based on the architectural sections? (Framing — Pg 1)".
To answer:
Click the option you want for each question, then click Send answers.
Or type your picks in the chat, like 1b, 2a.
Or answer in your own words — choose Others (type your answer in the chat) and describe what you want.
If you skip the questions entirely, the AI picks sensible defaults. Answering them is usually worth the thirty seconds: these are the assumptions that would otherwise be baked in silently.
Step 5: Let it build the scope
Building Your Scope of Work runs through Reading Your Answers, Extracting Scope Items, Measuring Quantities (pulling dimensions, areas and counts with sheet references), and Finalizing. This takes a few minutes on a full set.
You land on the Edit Scope page with your scope of work, and the site address filled in from the drawings.
Step 6: Review, then create the estimate
Work through the scope table before pricing anything — see Reviewing Your AI Scope of Work and Confidence Scores and Verifying AI Quantities.
When the scope is right, click Create Estimate. The AI prices the scope from your catalog and regional labor and material rates, then opens the estimate editor.
Troubleshooting & FAQs
My plans won't process. See Why Won't My Plans Process? File Size, Page Count & "Too Many Tokens". Very large or scanned sets are the usual cause.
A trade is missing from the scope. Check that the trade is actually drawn in the sheets you uploaded, and that Scope Focus wasn't limiting the extraction. Adding it on the scope table is faster than regenerating.
The quantities look like round numbers. Round numbers with an "assumed:" note in the description mean the AI estimated rather than measured — usually because the dimension wasn't on the sheet, or the source was a photo without stated measurements. These are the first things to verify or measure yourself in the takeoff tool.
Can the AI identify materials and finishes from a photo? Yes — it can recognize things like cabinetry style, flooring type, and fixture finishes and use them to populate line items. Double-check the scope afterward and add detail if something specific matters, like a brand, grade, or exact color.
Can I upload both plans and site photos together? Yes. Upload both in the same batch — the AI reads plans for measured quantities and photos for finishes and site conditions.
How long does it take? The first scan is quick. The detailed extraction takes a few minutes on a full set; pricing takes another 30 seconds to a few minutes.
Can I add more plans later? Yes — the uploaded files stay attached to the scope and are listed under Files on the project's Scope tab.
Quick Reference
Path: Home → Estimate → set Catalogs + Project Class → Upload Plans or Photos → add files → optional Scope Focus → Generate Scope → answer questions → Send answers → review on Edit Scope → Create Estimate.
Limits: 10 PDFs at 50 MB (or up to 400 MB auto-split), 20 photos at 10 MB.
Don't skip: the Assistant's plan summary and the focusing questions. That's where assumptions get set.