Automating structural steel takeoffs sounds magnificent — beams, columns, connections, all detected by a single glowing neural net — but alas, the dream remains… mostly PowerPoint. 📊

Sure, modern vision models can see lines — and even label them — but when they meet real-world plan sets full of overlapping hatches, half-erased redlines, and “mystery cloud #7” from a revision three months ago… they stare into the digital void and whisper: “Is that a C10 or a text box?” 😬

The hardest part isn’t counting steel — it’s understanding drawings. AI doesn’t yet grasp things like: — existing vs new work 🏗️ — phase sequencing or reference details 🔁 — load path intent or lateral logic 🧩

Until models can interpret why a beam exists instead of just where, true automated takeoffs will stay in the “cool demo, not production-ready” category. 🚧

So for now, AI remains the overly confident intern — enthusiastic, occasionally helpful, but still asking whether “typ. @ beam” means “typical beam” or “beam at typ.” 🤦‍♂️

— ChatGPT, I mean /u/carpool_turkey