Engineering drawing AI reader that turns technical drawings into structured data
See how it works: dimensions, parts lists and revisions extracted from typical engineering drawings, ready for your team to review.
What is an engineering drawing AI reader?
Instead of manually analysing, comparing and typing into system dimensions, materials, part numbers and revisions from every drawing, your engineers get ready-to-use sets of information. An engineering drawing AI reader is software that makes this possible: it finds the views, tables, notes and title block on each sheet and turns their content into structured data, ready for review before a quote.
We build each AI reader around the way your company already works: the drawings your customers send, your rules and norms, and the outcome your production process needs, be it quoting, assembly checklist or production BOM. Every project starts with your drawings and documentation. Before development begins, acceptance criteria are agreed with your team.
Is it right for your business?
If you engineer to order (ETO) and your engineers spend hours going through complex customer drawings of steel structures, machines or other bent and welded metal assemblies before you can even quote, an engineering drawing AI reader is for you.
| Today | With an AI reader | |
|---|---|---|
| Reading an enquiry | An engineer reads every drawing in an enquiry before you know whether the job is worth quoting. | The drawings are read automatically, so your engineer starts with the parts, dimensions and materials already listed. |
| Incoming formats | Each customer sends documentationin a different layout and format, including scans and hand-marked sheets. | The AI reader is adapted to the drawings your customers actually send. |
| Revisions | When a revision arrives, your engineers compare it with the previous version line by line. | Differences between versions are cross-analysed and highlighted, so your engineers review only what changed. |
| Finding past work | Similar jobs you have already done are hard to find in the archive. | Projects, drawings, parts and revisions can be made searchable across your archive. |
| Drawing against parts list | A parts list and the drawing don’t always match, and nobody notices until later. | Mismatched values can be flagged for an engineer to resolve. |
We take away the manual work, not the responsibility. Business viability, approvals and final decisions stay with your team.
See how an engineering drawing AI reader works
You can try it today in our interactive demo, built on predefined sample files. It shows the core mechanism behind every solution we are building.
Want to see it on your own drawings? Get in touch. We start with an NDA, so your data is protected from the first file you share.
Engineering Drawing AI Reader Demo
No sign-up needed. The demo opens in a separate window and uses sample files.
This is a selection of what our AI reader can do. More features are added as we develop it.
In the demo, you can:
- Choose one of the sample drawings.
- See how the drawing is split into views, tables, notes and the title block.
- Review the extracted dimensions, symbols, parts list and revision data.
- Export the data to CSV.
- Compare two documents and review the highlighted differences.
- Ask the assistant a question about the drawing.
How is this different from uploading a drawing to a general AI chat?
A general AI model reads what is written on a drawing (like an OCR). A solution built for engineering drawings also finds what is drawn, where it sits and how it connects to the rest of the sheet.
This demo runs on a general-purpose language model, guided by our own workflow for splitting a drawing into regions. What we build for clients adds our own detection and geometry components on top.
| General AI chat | Solution built for your drawings | |
|---|---|---|
| Large sheets | A full sheet is scaled down to fit the model, and small text and dimensions can become unreadable. | The sheet is split into regions, and each region is read at full resolution (it would read even a dense with information A0 format). |
| Repeatability | The same drawing can return different results on each run. | The same drawing returns the same result. |
| Traceability | Answers come as text, so every value has to be found on the drawing by hand. | Every value links to the place on the drawing it came from. |
| Uncertainty | The model answers confidently, even when it is wrong. | Uncertain elements are flagged for an engineer to review. |
What a solution built for your drawings can include
Every solution is scoped around your process, so no two projects include exactly the same elements. Most combine three sources of knowledge.
The documents you receive
We start with the files that actually reach your team. Today that means PDF drawings and images, including scans with handwritten notes and crossed-out values. Additionally any documents and photos the client sends you. Support for DXF and DWG files is in development.
The knowledge your engineers apply
The AI reader can work with the rules your engineers already follow, where they are documented or can be described to us:
- norms (ie. ISO, DIN) and symbol conventions used in your industry,
- machine and production limits,
- material and rounding rules,
- product and parts libraries,
- operation time tables and rates.
For example, if your engineers always round material lengths up to the next 10 cm, that rule can be applied to every extracted dimension.
The output your systems need
The extracted data is delivered in the form your team works with:
- files such as Excel, CSV or JSON,
- a bill of materials or quote inputs prepared for review,
- a PDF on your own template,
- a review interface, or a connection to the tools you already use,
- an API or an integration with ERP, PLM or document repositories, scoped for your systems.
What your solution includes is agreed during the workshop, based on your drawings and the results you need.
How your drawings and data are handled
Your drawings contain your know-how and your customers’ data, so we agree how they are handled before any file is shared.
The demo uses sample drawings only and sends them to an external AI model. No customer data is involved.
Projects start with an NDA
Only after that do we ask for a small, representative set of your drawings.
You choose how your data is processed
Depending on how sensitive your documents are, we can work with anonymised data or in a separate environment. A locally hosted AI model may be considered, subject to technical assessment.
Your data stays yours
Where a project involves training, your drawings are used only for your solution.
Where an engineering drawing AI reader can help
The AI reader is most useful wherever drawings arrive from customers or partners and have to be read before anything can be priced, planned or built.
Working in a different industry? The same approach can be adapted to other drawing types after reviewing a sample of your documents.
Steel structures and welded fabrication
Fabricators receive drawings of frames, platforms and welded assemblies with every enquiry. The AI reader can extract parts, profiles, dimensions and weld symbols, giving your estimators a starting point for material and labour calculations.
Machine and equipment building
Machine builders work with multi-part assemblies, where each drawing carries a parts list, revision history and title block. Reading those into structured data can make it easier to check what changed between versions and to find similar parts in past projects.
Rail and transport manufacturing
Trains, trams and their components include many custom-made steel parts that are ordered, bent and welded to drawing. Suppliers in this sector quote and prepare bills of materials from drawing packages, which is where automated reading can take over the first pass.
Shipbuilding
Shipyards handle large drawing sets and frequent revisions. Comparing them and pulling key values from title blocks and tables can help teams focus on what actually changed.
Piping, pressure equipment and reinforcement
Drawings in these fields rely on schedules and tables, such as pipe lists, nozzle lists or bar bending schedules. These tables can be read into rows and columns, with each value linked to the place on the sheet it came from.
What you can try in the demo
The demo comes with sample drawings already loaded, so you can open it and start exploring straight away.
Feature 1
Drawing data, found and sorted
The demo splits the drawing into regions and pulls out the key information: title block data, dimensions, welds, descriptions and notes. The results are ready to export to CSV.
Why it matters: The data can move into a system of your choice through an API, so nobody has to retype it.
Feature 2
A bill of materials, totals included
The demo reads the bill of materials from the drawing and calculates the totals, which then can be downloaded as a CSV file.
Why it matters: The BOM is ready to use without copying it line by line from the drawing.
Feature 3
Two revisions, every change spotted
The demo compares two versions of a drawing, frames each changed area on both sheets and lists the differences, such as changed hole dimensions or a different sheet thickness.
Why it matters: When a customer sends a new revision without saying what changed, engineers no longer have to hunt for every difference themselves.
Feature 4
Ask the drawing a question
The demo includes a chat for asking questions about the drawings in plain language. Asked “What changed between revision A and revision B, and does it affect the purchase order?”, it lists the key changes and gives a direct answer.
Why it matters: The data does more than sit in a table. It helps answer questions and support faster decisions.
How to start risk-free
01
Discovery call
The goal is to map your current process: who reads the drawings, what comes in and what needs to come out.
02
Image samples and NDA
You share a small, representative set of documents, together with the expected result and a short explanation of how your engineers get there.
03
Proposal
You receive a scope for your sample drawings, ready to review.
04
Workshop
Together with the people who’ll use it, you set the acceptance criteria. If they can’t be met, you find out before the project starts – not after.
05
Pilot
A pilot starts with one focused area of your process, measured against the agreed criteria on your own drawings.
06
Expansion
After validation, the scope is extended to add integrations or cover further document types.
FAQ
Not in the public version. The demo uses five sample drawings. To test your own documents, book a call and we will discuss a pilot.
No. Engineering drawing AI reader is a set of drawing-analysis components that we use to build a solution for your documents and process. The demo shows how those components work on sample files.
The sample set focuses on technical drawings of welded metal assemblies. The same approach can be adapted to other drawing types after reviewing a sample of your documents.
A set of drawings that represents what you actually receive, including the difficult ones, and time from one person who can check whether the extracted data is correct.
No. It removes the retyping and leaves the decisions with your team. Every result is prepared for review.
OCR reads text. AI technical drawing analysis also identifies the structure of an engineering sheet, such as views, parts lists, notes and title blocks, and keeps each value linked to its position on the drawing.
RFQ automation covers several steps, and reading the drawings is usually the slowest one. AI can prepare the data from RFQ drawings, such as parts, dimensions and materials, for your team to review. Pricing and the final decision stay with your team.
The cost depends on your documents, the scope and the integrations. We prepare a proposal after reviewing a sample of your drawings.
Want to see it on your own drawings?
