nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Bluebeam Community

Build connections with Bluebeamers around the world, discover what’s new, and make your voice heard.

Day 2 - Finding Underrated tools in Bluebeam

Dhanush Kodi Raj

One of the most underrated tools in Bluebeam Revu is Visual Search.

Instead of manually counting symbols across hundreds of drawing sheets, simply select one symbol and let Bluebeam find every matching occurrence automatically.

I regularly use it for door counts, lighting fixtures, fire alarm devices, and MEP equipment takeoffs. Combined with Bluebeam's highlighting and counting tools, it can save hours of repetitive work during estimation and quantity surveying.

If you're still counting symbols sheet by sheet, it's time to explore Visual Search.

Find more posts tagged with

Takeoffs & Estimation

Tips & Tricks

Comments

Ellen Moore

Thanks for sharing this. I spent some time testing Visual Search on an electrical lighting plan today, but I'm running into an issue.

The fixture symbol I'm trying to count is a solid dot with a thin circle around it. Bluebeam appears to recognize the surrounding linework, text, and other objects, but it does not recognize the actual fixture symbol itself as part of the search.

I've tried:
• Selecting only the fixture symbol
• Selecting the symbol along with surrounding geometry
• Using multiple instances of the symbol
• Zooming in and creating very tight search areas

In each case, Bluebeam either ignores the fixture symbol or returns no matching results. Any recommendations?

Nic Bitting

Have you tried adjusting the sensitivity of the visual search?

There should be a slider below the Options dropdown, and sometimes increasing or decreasing the sensitivity will help pull the image you're trying to search for.

forrest.simmons

In my experience sliding it LEFT increases the sensitivity. Not sure why they provide a slider with no description as to which direction increases/decreases the sensitivity.

Checking the "search for fine detail" box also helps.

All that said: It's not perfect and does miss things but it typically helps with the heavy lifting in my case.

Nic Bitting

@Ellen Moore, these are great additions by @forrest.simmons!
I'd forgotten about the "Search for Fine Detail" box - that's helped me several times too.

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.