What Design drawings does
Bidligence's Design Agent, its Super Intelligence for drawings, reads the analysed tender and the tender text, with addenda and clarifications placed first, the latest first, and an instruction to use the values they change over the documents they supersede. It decides what to draw and records it as a design spec. Fixed drawing rules in the code check that spec, and a drafting engine draws exactly what the checked spec says. The model never draws the lines itself.
Before it draws, the agent writes down what the tender requires of the design, and is asked to name the clause each item came from: room areas, the number of windows a room needs, door and window sizes, and where the main entrance opens. The drawing is then checked against that brief as well as against itself.
- Floor plans of the building's levels, with walls, doors and windows, rooms, stairs, grids and dimension strings.
- Foundation plans showing the footings.
- Site and utility plans, where the design has services, for sewer, stormwater, water, electrical, telecom and gas runs, with arrows showing the direction of flow and invert levels where the spec sets them.
- Schedules on the set's schedules sheet: a door and window schedule (mark, type, width, height, sill, wall, swing and level) and a room area schedule with each room's area and a total.
- A tender brief compliance table, on the schedules sheet or on sheet 1 when the set has none, listing each requirement, what was drawn and whether it meets the tender, differs from it or could not be found.
How a drawing run works
Drawings are optional and sit outside the package of 12 generated documents. When the analysed tender asks for drawings, or is a design-and-build contract, the Configure step of the bid wizard says so and lists what it found. The run itself starts from the Drawings tab, in the Review step or in the bid's workspace:
- 1Analyse the tender first. The Design Agent drafts from the analysis, so the Drawings tab waits until the tender has been analysed.
- 2Add instructions if you want to. An optional box takes your directions for the agent, such as the building's size, the number of storeys, the wall build-up or where the sewer runs.
- 3Generate drawings. The run drafts the spec, checks it against the drawing rules and the tender's brief, and sends the errors back to the agent for up to three rounds of repairs, only one of them spent on differences from the brief alone, keeping the best attempt. Progress shows stage by stage, with each rule check's error and warning count, and the run carries on on the server if you leave the page.
- 4Lay out and draw. Each plan is re-scaled to the largest standard scale at which it fits its sheet with room to spare, never larger than 1:50 for a floor or foundation plan, and every change of scale is recorded as an assumption; a change that could not be recorded, or would break a rule, is not made. The sheets are drawn true to scale and saved as a PDF set and a DXF file per sheet.
- 5Review the current set. The Drawings tab lists the sheets, the downloads, the tender brief compliance table, the rule warnings for the engineer and every assumption, each labelled as read from the tender, taken from a design code or assumed.
- 6Record the sign-off. Once your registered engineer has reviewed the set, they record it while signed in as a technical lead or above: their name, licence or registration number, optionally the jurisdiction, and a tick confirming that they are that engineer, have reviewed the drawings and take professional responsibility for them. The set is re-plotted without the NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION mark, with the engineer's name, licence number and the date in every title block.
A run has a five-minute limit. If it runs out of time, or the repairs cannot clear a rule error that blocks drawing, the run fails, the credits its Super Intelligence draft used are refunded, and the rule errors that stopped it are shown so you can try again with instructions.
What you get
Every sheet carries a frame and a title block with the project, client, tender reference, "Prepared by" your company, the scale and sheet size, the date and its place in the set. Plans add a north arrow and a scale bar, and sheet 1 carries the assumptions and the rule warnings so they travel with the drawings.
| What | What is in it |
|---|---|
| PDF set | One page per sheet on A1, A2 or A3, drawn true to scale, for your engineer to review |
| DXF files | One per sheet in the R2000 version of the format, in a ZIP, with the plan at 1:1 in millimetres on named layers with lineweights, for your CAD software |
| Schedules | Door and window schedule, room area schedule and the tender brief compliance table, using the same door and window marks as the plans |
| Assumptions | Where the Design Agent's values came from, each marked as read from the tender, taken from a design code or assumed, printed on sheet 1 (rows that do not fit are counted there) and listed in full on the Drawings tab for the engineer to confirm |
| Rule warnings | What the drawing rules flagged but did not block, such as a footing to check against the geotechnical report, printed for the reviewing engineer |
| 3D review | A model of the same spec in your browser, with PNG stills and an MP4 film, or a WebM film where your browser cannot make an MP4 |
The 3D walkthrough
The 3D review is drawn in your browser from the same millimetre spec as the sheets. Views, images and films are made on your device: nothing is uploaded and nothing is charged. Before anything renders you choose a look, so the colour and lighting are yours, not a default: True colour, Soft daylight, Overcast, Cinematic or Clay model. You can change it from the toolbar at any time.
- Orbit round the model, pan and zoom toward the pointer, jump to front, back, left, right, top and isometric views, or set it turning on a 360° turntable.
- Walk through the building at eye height with the keyboard and mouse, or a joystick and drag-to-look on a touch screen. Walls stop you, doorways let you through, a straight stair takes you to the next floor, and you can step a floor up or down.
- 360° look puts you in any room to look all round from where you stand.
- Tour plays a walkthrough from outside the main entrance through every room a door reaches, and says under the view when a room cannot be reached through a door. That is a signal worth raising with your engineer.
- Display options: shaded, x-ray or wireframe; show floors up to the one you pick; a cutaway 1.2 m above the floor that reads like a plan; a section box; footings, basements and pipes below ground, where the design has them; room labels and room colours; full screen.
- Stills and films: save a PNG snapshot of the view, or a 360° panorama from where the camera stands as a PNG image, or make a 360° fly-around or walkthrough film of 10 to 60 seconds at 720p or 1080p, in a look you choose for the film. A browser that cannot encode 1080p makes it at 720p, and where the browser cannot encode an MP4 frame by frame at all, the panel says so before anything is made and records the film in real time instead, at 720p, as an MP4 or a WebM file.
Every 3D still and film carries a caption naming the project and the look it was made in, and NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION until the set is signed off.
Checked against drawing rules and the tender's brief
Millimetre precision is not correctness, so the spec is checked before anything is drawn. The rules are code, not the model's judgement, and an error sends the spec back to the agent with the exact item at fault. Among the checks:
- walls that overlap or are too thin, and doors and windows that overlap, sit too close to a wall junction or fall outside their wall;
- stairs with risers or goings outside the rule, stairs that block a door or run outside the building, and rooms no door reaches;
- gravity pipes that do not fall, and footings shallow enough to check against the geotechnical report;
- the external walls against the overall size the tender gives, and plans too large for their sheet;
- room areas, windows per room, door and window sizes and the main entrance against the tender's brief.
The tender's brief often pulls one way while the plan pulls another, since room areas, window counts and widths all share the same walls. Differences from the brief that the repairs could not resolve do not stop the run: the set is delivered with each one listed in the compliance table and the warnings, and the Drawings tab says how many remain, for you and your engineer to settle before submission.
How it connects to the rest of the bid desk
Drawings use the analysis that powers the rest of the bid and report back into the package:
- The Submission Guard links a drawings requirement to the bid's current set. The row stays In progress until a registered engineer's sign-off is recorded on that set, and a newer set that has not been signed off takes it back to In progress. A requirement that asks for an original, a notarised copy or a wet-ink signature stays In progress after the sign-off too, and a status you set by hand is left as you set it.
- Bid exports: the package ZIP carries the current set's files in a drawings folder, and its README says whether the set is NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION or names the engineer who signed it off.
- Hunter, the bid agent, can start a drawing run from the chat, in the panel beside it, and report where a bid's drawings stand: the sheets, the review status and the warnings.
- The Mock Evaluator does not read the drawings, so they are not part of its score.
- Tender management walks through the seven-step bid the drawings sit beside, from the analysis and the Bid Score to the document package.
Its limits, and your control
Design drawings is a beta. Know where it stops:
- Drafts, not construction drawings. The sheets are design-development drawings for professional review. Responsibility for the design and its fitness for construction rests with you and the engineer who signs it off.
- The sign-off is an attestation, not a check by Bidligence. Whoever records it ticks a statement that they are the registered engineer named, have reviewed the drawings and take professional responsibility for them, and it is recorded against their account. Only a finished set that is the bid's current one can be signed off.
- Rule checks are not engineering. The rules catch drawing faults and differences from the brief; they do not design structure, services or compliance with local codes.
- One run at a time. A bid has one drawing run in flight at a time, and while one bid in a workspace is drafting, a run on another bid is turned away with a note to try again in a few minutes.
- Roles. Finance, Technical lead, Bid manager and Admin members can start a run, because it spends credits. Technical lead, Bid manager and Admin members can record a sign-off.
- Plans and credits. A drawing run needs a plan that generates the bid documents: Starter (US$399 a month), Pro (US$799 a month) or Enterprise. Starter and Pro each start with a 3-day free trial. A run draws on the workspace's credits, and the Drawings tab shows its typical cost beside the Generate button before you start. The 3D review, its stills and its films cost nothing.
Questions
- Can I build from the drawings Bidligence produces?
- Not as they come. They are design-development drawings for professional review: every sheet, 3D still and film carries NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION until your registered engineer reviews the set and their sign-off is recorded in Bidligence, which re-plots the set without the mark. Bidligence does not review or certify drawings.
- What file formats do I get?
- A PDF set with one page per sheet, drawn true to scale, and a DXF file per sheet in the R2000 version of the format, delivered in a ZIP and drawn at 1:1 in millimetres on named layers. From the 3D review you can save PNG stills and an MP4 film, or a WebM film in a browser that cannot make an MP4.
- Does the 3D walkthrough cost credits?
- No. The 3D review is drawn in your browser from the drawing set's spec, and its views, stills and films are made on your device: nothing is uploaded and nothing is charged. The drawing run that produces the set is what draws on credits.
- What happens if a drawing run fails?
- The run stops, its partial files are discarded and the credits its Super Intelligence draft used are refunded. The Drawings tab shows why it stopped, including the rule errors it could not repair, and you can try again with instructions, for example the room widths or the storey count to use.
- Which plans include design drawings?
- A drawing run needs Starter, Pro or Enterprise, the plans that generate the bid documents. Starter and Pro each start with a 3-day free trial. A new free workspace's 500 welcome credits, granted once its e-mail is confirmed, cover the tender analysis the drawings are drafted from, its Bid Score and a priced BOQ.
- Does a drawing run follow the tender's own requirements?
- It tries to, and shows you where it does not. The Design Agent records the room areas, windows per room, door and window sizes and main entrance the tender asks for, with the clause each came from, and the rules check the drawing against them. The compliance table marks each one as meeting the tender, differing from it or not found.