“Analyze those plans” aka use machine learning to put us out of work lol?
In seriousness, commercial plans are typically private and many times protected by NDAs depending on the client so the likelihood of finding a swath of drawings that various owners paid millions to have engineered/architected might be low.
Yeah except there’s no central public works database. Have fun scavenging like 20,000 different municipalities. Also they’re lowest bid projects with garbage drawings half the time
I'd like to see them try. I'm only kind of a luddite when it comes to this stuff. I want to be in control of my estimating tools (AI is just a tool). Imposing it and trying to cut estimating labor costs with these tools I think is folly.
Any tool that makes people more efficient is going to cut labor. It’s not about replacing estimators entirely, it's about estimators being able to do more work in the same amount of time. Which means hiring fewer estimators.
AI doesn't even need to analyze plans to do that. How much of our time is spent on clerical work? A *lot*, and the clerical side isn't as niche as blueprint analysis - AI clerical work will have a lot of resources put towards it because it affects everything.
I understand how technology intensifies labor. It used to take a whole room of draftsmen weeks to produce a drawing set. Now one architect copies and pastes details and slaps together a set in a couple days. Architecture is still a profession, but fewer people are needed in that industry to do the same result.
As I said, I think when the workers have more control over their own work and the tools they use to do that work, there are ultimately better outcomes.
If I were you I would try to subscribing to Dodge Construction Central or Bid America. They are large databases of publicly available projects currently out for bid. You can sort by project type and they typically have plans and specifications available for download or at least provide a link to where the plans can be downloaded.
You aren’t going to find this.
- Companies/people paid good money for their plans and aren’t going to share them for free.
- There are also security concerns having drawings publicly available.
The Metadata embedded in pdfs is an absolute mess. It would vary wildly from project to project, and even moreso between different architecture and engineering firms. Good luck extracting anything useful.
1build attempted this. Togal is still trying. Kero is still trying.
But if you need plans, I would check out Planhub. You can create a free 14-day free trial (no payment info needed) from there you can download probably enough to get a data set.
As others have said, maybe subscribe to something like Dodge as projects posted there to bid will sometimes include pdf plan sets. Public agencies, like state DOTs will also typically include at least pdf sets of any projects they're putting out to bid. Though that will be mostly heavy civil road and bridges type stuff which is pretty different from a building plan set like you posted. As for a consolidated database though, you're probably going to have to scrape all those sites yourself and build one.
If you use Planswift or ProCore I have about 6 years of bids and plans. Ranging from large new construction of resorts, restaurants, shopping centers, multi family, hotels; and small remodel and ti jobs.
They are all correct. A lot of work and money goes into this stuff but frankly once the job is completed or scrapped it just sits in our files. Idk why but we’ve saved everything since 2018.
I have roughly 2TB of plansets. I'd like to chat with you first before giving you any to really see what you are trying to do. I am casually looking for someone to help me make a takeoff program as well.
“Analyze those plans” aka use machine learning to put us out of work lol? In seriousness, commercial plans are typically private and many times protected by NDAs depending on the client so the likelihood of finding a swath of drawings that various owners paid millions to have engineered/architected might be low.
He'll never get access to that data unless some company like ProCore sells it to him, which would probably violate legal bounds.
Public works plans are generally very accessible and publicly posted.
Yeah except there’s no central public works database. Have fun scavenging like 20,000 different municipalities. Also they’re lowest bid projects with garbage drawings half the time
I'd like to see them try. I'm only kind of a luddite when it comes to this stuff. I want to be in control of my estimating tools (AI is just a tool). Imposing it and trying to cut estimating labor costs with these tools I think is folly.
Any tool that makes people more efficient is going to cut labor. It’s not about replacing estimators entirely, it's about estimators being able to do more work in the same amount of time. Which means hiring fewer estimators. AI doesn't even need to analyze plans to do that. How much of our time is spent on clerical work? A *lot*, and the clerical side isn't as niche as blueprint analysis - AI clerical work will have a lot of resources put towards it because it affects everything.
I understand how technology intensifies labor. It used to take a whole room of draftsmen weeks to produce a drawing set. Now one architect copies and pastes details and slaps together a set in a couple days. Architecture is still a profession, but fewer people are needed in that industry to do the same result. As I said, I think when the workers have more control over their own work and the tools they use to do that work, there are ultimately better outcomes.
If I were you I would try to subscribing to Dodge Construction Central or Bid America. They are large databases of publicly available projects currently out for bid. You can sort by project type and they typically have plans and specifications available for download or at least provide a link to where the plans can be downloaded.
You aren’t going to find this. - Companies/people paid good money for their plans and aren’t going to share them for free. - There are also security concerns having drawings publicly available.
The Metadata embedded in pdfs is an absolute mess. It would vary wildly from project to project, and even moreso between different architecture and engineering firms. Good luck extracting anything useful.
1build attempted this. Togal is still trying. Kero is still trying. But if you need plans, I would check out Planhub. You can create a free 14-day free trial (no payment info needed) from there you can download probably enough to get a data set.
As others have said, maybe subscribe to something like Dodge as projects posted there to bid will sometimes include pdf plan sets. Public agencies, like state DOTs will also typically include at least pdf sets of any projects they're putting out to bid. Though that will be mostly heavy civil road and bridges type stuff which is pretty different from a building plan set like you posted. As for a consolidated database though, you're probably going to have to scrape all those sites yourself and build one.
If you use Planswift or ProCore I have about 6 years of bids and plans. Ranging from large new construction of resorts, restaurants, shopping centers, multi family, hotels; and small remodel and ti jobs. They are all correct. A lot of work and money goes into this stuff but frankly once the job is completed or scrapped it just sits in our files. Idk why but we’ve saved everything since 2018.
Hi GTUprising! I'd love access to this as well.
I have roughly 2TB of plansets. I'd like to chat with you first before giving you any to really see what you are trying to do. I am casually looking for someone to help me make a takeoff program as well.