Gridline

Modern, lightweight construction takeoff & estimating for Windows.

⬇ Download Gridline for Windows (.exe) · All releases

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What it does

• Plans — drop in PDF drawing sets (multi-page). Sheets are auto-named from the title block (e.g. A-101) and shown with thumbnails. The sheet list switches between All pages and Current page only (each PDF also collapses with its arrow), and × closes a PDF. File → Close Project (Ctrl+W) closes everything.
• Collapsible side panels — slim tabs on the left and right edges of the drawing tuck each sidebar away and bring it back with one click ([ left, ] right, \ both). The drawing stays put while they slide, and the layout is remembered.
• Appearance — themes (Dark, Midnight, Slate, Light, Paper, High contrast), accent colours, and dark drawings: show sheets as Dark (charcoal paper, light linework — coloured lines keep their hue), Blueprint, or Low glare. A faint-line boost keeps light hatching and small text readable. Measurements, markups and the assistant always use the real drawing. Ctrl+Shift+D toggles dark drawings.
• Command palette (Ctrl+K) — type to run any action, jump to a sheet or condition, switch themes, or open a recent project.
• Autosave & recovery — unsaved work is saved in the background every 90 seconds; if Gridline closes unexpectedly it offers to recover it next time.
• Recent projects on the start screen, sheet search in the Sheets panel, and a condition library that saves conditions (with tags, costs and waste) for reuse across projects.
• Settings (gear icon, Ctrl+,) — theme (dark / light / match Windows), snap on/off and strength, sheet list mode, automatic updates, and per-project units, length display (ft-in or decimal), on-plan labels and estimate markups. Project settings can be saved as defaults for new projects.
• Scale — architectural, engineering and metric presets, or calibrate from any known dimension. Apply one scale to a whole set.
• Quick LF / SF toggles — one click on LF or SF (or Tab to flip between them) and you're measuring; no condition setup required. Each toggle remembers the last condition you used with it, and its ▾ menu switches conditions.
• Smart tools (free, offline)
  • Auto-scale — when you add drawings, each sheet's scale is read from its title block (SCALE: 1/4" = 1'-0", 1" = 20', 1:100). Auto scales are tagged auto so you can spot-check them; also available from the scale menu and a sheet's right-click menu.
  • Fill (B) — click inside a room or facade zone and its area is traced from the linework, corners snapped exactly. Hatching (brick coursing, siding laps, diagonal hatch) is ignored so a whole zone fills at once. Alt+click makes a deduction. If walls have a gap (a door opening with no swing), Gridline tells you instead of guessing. Gap tolerance is in Settings.
  • Find matching symbols — with the Count tool, drag a box around one symbol and Gridline finds every match on the sheet, including rotated ones. Review them (click a ring to skip it, slide for fewer/more) and press Add.
• AI assistant (free, runs on your PC) — click Ask (or press /) and tell it what to do: "read the scale on every sheet", "fill every room on A-101 as Carpet tile", "count all the door tags", "make a 6/12 roof condition at $145 a square", "what are my totals?". It uses Gridline's own tools (auto-scale, Fill, counts, conditions, pricing) and can look at the sheet. Everything it does in one request is a single Undo.
  • Needs Ollama running on the same PC (no account needed). On first use the panel offers a one-click download of the recommended model (Qwen 3.8 27B, ~18 GB — a 24 GB GPU like an RTX 4090 runs it well). Any installed Ollama model with tool support can be picked from the panel.
  • Measures from the real linework, not by eye. It finds each view on a sheet (e.g. "1 – Proposed Front Elevation"), finds every closed zone in it, ignoring hatching, reads the finish tags inside each zone, and measures exact areas with openings (windows, doors, storefront) deducted automatically.
  • One-call workflows — "take off the finishes on A-203" reads the finish schedule, creates a tagged condition per material and measures every elevation; "do the flooring on A-101" reads the room finish schedule and fills each room into its floor finish; "count the doors" reads the door schedule and counts by type.
  • Fast — keeps the model loaded, reuses Ollama's prompt cache between steps, streams replies as they're written, and only "thinks" when planning or fixing a mistake (Auto / Always / Never in the model menu). Speed is shown under the chat box.
  • Plans its work as a visible checklist, searches every sheet for schedules and notes, reads schedules as tables, and does all math with an exact calculator — no mental arithmetic.
  • Measures by finish tag — conditions carry tags (BR-1, FC-1…); each zone is measured into the condition whose tag is inside it. Untagged zones are matched by hatch pattern (also against other elevations) and flagged with a ? for you to confirm; windows, doors and storefront are recognised as openings. Check flagged jumps through anything it wasn't sure about.
  • Remembers project decisions (e.g. "BR-1 = brick veneer per A-701") and checks tool inputs, suggesting the right sheet or condition name when one is mistyped.
  • Detailed and self-checking. Every markup is labeled by view or area, the estimate can show a breakdown by sheet & view, and the CSV export includes a takeoff-detail section. Before it reports back, the assistant reviews an image of its markups on the drawing and fixes anything off.
  • Drawings never leave your computer.
• Snap to plan lines — Gridline reads the vector linework in the PDF and snaps to wall corners (□), line crossings (×) and anywhere along a line (◇), plus your existing markup points. S toggles it; hold Ctrl to place a free point.
• Takeoff tools
  • Linear — walls, curbs, pipe, trim. Optional height gives wall SF. Set a roof line type (rake or hip/valley) plus pitch to get true sloped length.
  • Roof — trace roof planes in plan view and enter the pitch (6/12, 6, or 26.6°). You get true roof area, squares, plan area and perimeter. Override the pitch per roof plane; hold Alt to deduct skylights and chimneys. Roofing defaults to 10% waste and pricing per square.
  • Area — slabs, flooring, roofing. Optional depth gives CY; hold Alt when finishing to make a deduction (openings, shafts).
  • Count — fixtures, devices, doors, with on-plan numbering.
  • Quick measure — one-off dimensions without saving a markup.
  • Shift snaps to 45°/90°. Edit by dragging vertices or whole shapes. Full undo/redo.
• Conditions — named takeoff items with color, group/CSI division, waste %, and material + labor unit costs.
• Typicals — set Typical × on any markup (e.g. one unit plan × 12) and its quantities are multiplied everywhere; the label shows ×12.
• Copy & paste markups (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V) — onto the same sheet or another one (same spot), or right-click a sheet → Copy all markups.
• Compare sheets — right-click a sheet → Compare with… to overlay an older revision: added linework shows red, removed shows blue.
• Estimate — quantities roll up live into a priced estimate grouped by division, with sales tax, overhead and profit. Choose what each item is priced by (LF, SF, CY, wall SF, EA).
• Exports — Excel (Ctrl+Shift+E: estimate with live formulas, takeoff detail and sheet list), Marked-up PDF (Ctrl+P: your markups drawn as vectors on the original sheets, with a legend and summary page) and CSV.
• Projects — a single portable .gridline file with the drawings embedded. Double-click to open.
• Built-in updater — checks GitHub Releases on launch and every few hours, downloads in the background, then shows Restart to update. Also under Help → Check for Updates.
• Dark and light themes.

Install

Download Gridline-Setup.exe and run it. It installs per-user (no admin needed) and adds Start-menu and desktop shortcuts.

The installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC" the first time. Click More info → Run anyway.

Keyboard shortcuts

Action	Key	Action	Key
Select	V	Finish shape	Enter / double-click / right-click
Pan	H or hold Space	Remove last point	Backspace
Linear	L	Cancel	Esc
Area	A	Fit page	F
Roof	R	Flip Linear ⇄ Area	Tab
Count	C	Prev / next sheet	PgUp / PgDn
Snap on/off	S	Free point (no snap)	hold Ctrl
Fill room	B	Find matches	Count tool, drag a box
Command palette	Ctrl+K	Dark drawings	Ctrl+Shift+D
Measure	M	Undo / redo	Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y
Calibrate	K	Takeoff / Estimate	Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2

Development

npm install      # also copies PDF.js into src/renderer/vendor
npm start        # run the app
npm test         # measurement + pricing unit tests
npm run dist     # build dist/Gridline-Setup-x.y.z.exe locally (on Windows)

Stack: Electron, PDF.js, plain ES modules (no framework, no bundler), electron-builder (NSIS) and electron-updater.

Shipping an update

npm run release:patch   # 1.0.0 -> 1.0.1, commits, tags and pushes

Any push to main that carries a new version in package.json (or a pushed v* tag) runs the Release workflow on GitHub Actions: it tests, builds the NSIS installer, and publishes Gridline-Setup-x.y.z.exe, Gridline-Setup.exe and latest.yml to a GitHub Release tagged vX.Y.Z. Pushes that don't change the version are skipped. Every installed copy then finds the update on its next check.

License

MIT