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What’s New With Trimble LiveCount Digital Takeoff Software

Published Date
Author Ryan Allred

Trimble LiveCount™ digital takeoff software helps electrical contractors create estimates faster, easier, and more accurately. Taking off drawings is probably the most time-consuming part of an estimator's job. That’s why each month, we introduce new features and improvements to our LiveCount software – many of these are based on direct customer feedback – to help save you time and make takeoff a breeze – or at least a bit less tedious!

Here are some of the recently released features in LiveCount that you can take advantage of to simplify and streamline your takeoff process.

Key New Features

  • Custom Symbol Points: Users can now create their own custom symbols for use as a Point Style in their takeoff annotations. From the Takeoff screen, users simply select a count annotation on an existing drawing – or any drawing/PDF with desired symbols/icons – and click on the Custom Symbol option in the Point Style dropdown to begin the process of creating and saving the new symbol point, which will then be available for company-wide use. Utilizing symbol points during takeoff makes it easier to find and recognize items on annotated drawings and delivers a more professional-looking takeoff. This is a highly requested feature and is especially helpful for design-build projects. Watch the video to see it in action.

  • Place images on drawings (Requires Trimble Connect): To help provide more details and context to annotated drawings, users now have the option to add images to their drawings. These can be snippets from other drawings (e.g. detailed plant room), photos or notes. After adding images to the drawing, they become annotations.

Added images are stored in the 'Images' folder in Document Manager and can be renamed and/or moved to a different folder. Watch the video to see it in action.

Additional Enhancements

Annotation Improvements

  • Select Multiple Annotation Groups: Users can now select multiple annotation groups on a drawing by boxing in an area (hold the left mouse button or use the CTRL key). This speeds up takeoff and is especially useful when, for example, moving or copying multiple annotations at once and using it for identical rooms or floors. Watch the video to see it in action.

  • Improvements to Auto Count - Review on Drawing Mode: Users now have access to the same options as in the Returned Results dialog. This saves time for users by eliminating the need to return to the dialog before they can draw the results.

  • Identify Annotations from Estimating Software: When the user selects an item (or items) from the audit trail in your Estimating software, the corresponding annotations will be highlighted in LiveCount. This allows users more easily identify existing annotations and can help quality check for omissions.

  • Rotate Points: By using the rotation grip tool, users can now rotate points placed on the drawing, ensuring the point annotations are in the desired orientation.

Drawings Management Improvements

  • Drawing Compare Improvements: Several improvements have been made to help users more easily handle drawing revisions:

    • Larger Drawing Compare window to facilitate finding and selecting the correct drawing.

    • If drawings have been organized into folders, the folder structure is now also displayed.

    • New Search field helps make it easier to find the desired drawing.

  • Improved integration with Trimble Connect for easier job linking: 

    • For jobs previously associated with a Trimble Connect project, users can now re-associate that job with a different Trimble Connect project.

    • For jobs not previously associated with a Trimble Connect project, users now have the option to link a job from the Document Manager page, allowing greater flexibility for linking and organizing files.

Availability

Trimble LiveCount is included in the Accubid Anywhere and Accubid Classic Estimating Essentials subscriptions. For more information, or to request a demo, please contact us at mep.trimble.com/get-in-touch.