FOR QUANTITY SURVEYORS
AI for quantity surveyors: every quantity traced to its sheet
AI quantity surveying software, as Mirage deploys it, measures drawing sets, scanned or vector, into the work sections of your bill or the elements of your cost plan, and links every quantity to the sheet and revision it came from. You check, adjust and sign off; the measuring pass is what goes. Takeoff in production at OCBM and John Cockerill; an NRM2 bill would be a first, and the pilot says so.
Running at OCBM and John Cockerill.
THE REALITY
A quantity surveyor's year is measurement, re-measurement and reconciliation: the bill at tender, the variation when a revision lands, the valuation each month, the final account at the end. The judgement is yours, but most of the hours go into finding and measuring again the quantity that judgement depends on.
THE WORK
Where a quantity surveyor's hours go, task by task
Under NRM2, the RICS rules for detailed measurement of building works, a bill of quantities has two jobs: it lets contractors price the works on the same basis, and once the contract is let, it is the basis for valuing interim payments and varied work. Every one of the tasks below comes back to a measured quantity and the drawing it came from.
Task
What Mirage prepares
What stays with you
Measurement and bills of quantities
What Mirage prepares
Quantities measured from the drawings into your bill's work sections, units and descriptions, each line linked to its sheet, revision and detail, with a flag wherever the drawing or the scan leaves a doubt.
What stays with you
The descriptions you accept, the items the drawings do not show, preliminaries and provisional sums, and the decision to issue the bill.
Cost plans
What Mirage prepares
Element quantities taken from the design as it stands, kept with the revision they came from, so the next cost plan update starts from what changed rather than from a fresh measure.
What stays with you
Rates, benchmarks, risk allowances, and the advice you give the client on the figure.
Interim valuations
What Mirage prepares
The measured record to value against: the quantities in the bill, the quantities changed by later revisions, and the sheet behind each one.
What stays with you
Assessing the work done on site, the valuation itself, and agreeing it.
Variations and compensation events
What Mirage prepares
The difference between two drawing revisions: which quantities changed, by how much, on which sheets. That is the measured starting point of a variation, or of the quotation for an NEC4 compensation event.
What stays with you
Whether the change is a variation at all, how it is valued under the contract, and the notices the contract requires.
Final accounts
What Mirage prepares
The trail from tender quantity to final quantity, revision by revision, so each adjustment in the account points to the drawing that caused it.
What stays with you
Negotiation, agreement and the signature on the account.
What it reads
- Drawing sets in PDF, DWG or IFC, scanned or vector, mixed in one set
- Specifications, read with the drawings to resolve what each element is
- Successive revisions of the same set, to return what changed
- Your existing bill or cost plan layout, so the output lands in your format
CHECKING A QUANTITY
How do you check an AI-measured quantity against NRM2?
A quantity surveyor signs the bill, so the question is not whether the agent is accurate in general but whether this line is right. Seven checks, each one answerable from the line's own references, settle it in the order a QS would ask them.
Is the source open?
The line names its sheet, revision and detail. Open that sheet. A line without a source is not accepted, and does not appear in the output.
Is the work section right?
The NRM2 work section and item number match the element measured: in-situ concrete under 11, masonry under 14, structural metalwork under 15, with the unit the rules prescribe (m³, m², m, t, nr).
Is the measurement rule applied?
Deductions, voids, thicknesses over and under 300 mm, lengths over and under 1 m: the conventions NRM2 sets, and your practice's own where the rules leave a choice, as agreed before the first run.
Does the schedule agree with the drawing?
A bar schedule against the bars drawn, a door schedule against the plan count. Where they disagree the line comes back flagged, and the QS decides which governs.
What did the last revision change?
The previous figure sits beside the new one, with the sheet that moved it. The variation or the compensation event starts from that difference, not from a re-measure.
Is the flag justified?
Low confidence on a scanned sheet, an unclear scale, two documents in conflict: the flag says why. Clear it or correct the line; the correction becomes a rule for the next set.
What is not on the drawings?
Preliminaries, provisional sums, items the drawings do not show and the descriptions you accept remain the QS's, and the output leaves room for them rather than inventing them.
Mirage's clients today are in France, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United States; a bill measured to NRM2 for a UK project would be a first, which is why the pilot checks the rule set against a bill your team has already measured before anything is relied on.
WHAT MIRAGE DOES
What changes for the quantity surveyor?
With Mirage, measurement becomes a checking task: AI agents measure the drawings into the bill's structure, and the quantity surveyor checks each quantity against the sheet it came from before it is priced or valued.
Measures the drawings you actually receive
PDF, DWG and IFC, scanned and vector sheets in one pass, mixed in the same set. The agents read plan, section, detail and specification together, and group quantities into the work sections, units and descriptions your practice uses, NRM2 or the project's own method, agreed with your team before the first run.
Every quantity traced, every doubt flagged
Each line carries the sheet, revision, detail and specification reference it was measured from. Where a scan is poor, a scale is unclear or two documents disagree, the line carries a confidence flag instead of a guess, so you know which figures to open first.
Revisions become a list of changes
When a new revision lands, Mirage compares it with the previous set and returns what changed, in which quantities, on which sheets. The measured record exports to Excel or to the import format of your estimating or cost system, and connects to Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and Sage.
THE OUTPUT
What does a traced measurement look like?
An illustrative extract with invented quantities: each line carries its NRM2 item, the sheet and revision it was measured from, and a flag wherever a quantity surveyor needs to look before pricing.
| Description | NRM2 item | Qty | Unit | Source | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-situ concrete, horizontal work over 300 mm thick, in structures: ground beams | 11.2 | 86 | m³ | S-110 rev C, detail 4/S-301 | None |
| High yield steel bars, 16 mm, bent↳ Two bar marks on the bending schedule do not match the bars drawn on S-110 revision C. Flagged for the quantity surveyor before the item is priced. | 11.34 | 7.4 | t | S-110 rev C, schedule BS-02 | Schedule mismatch |
| Walls, 140 mm blockwork↳ Revision D adds 70 m² against revision C, from a moved partition on the second floor. The previous figure stays beside the new one until the quantity surveyor confirms it. | 14.1 | 1,310 | m² | A-201 rev D | Changed in rev D |
| Framed members, beams, 25 to 50 kg/m, lengths over 1 m up to 9 m | 15.1 | 18.6 | t | S-205 rev B | None |
| In-situ concrete, vertical work up to 300 mm thick, walls | 11.5 | 42 | m³ | S-120, scanned sheet | Low confidence |
PROOF
Where this already runs
OCBM and John Cockerill's Morocco operations run Mirage's takeoff in production, and Rouandi runs an estimating workflow on live projects. In all three, people review the output before it is used.
OCBM
3 agents in production
Every quantity traceable to its source drawing
Estimators review the takeoff line by line and keep control of the output
John Cockerill
80 to 90% less time on piping takeoff
Fabrication bill of materials ten times faster
Engineers review the output instead of measuring
Rouandi
One estimating workflow in production on live projects
Every output reviewed by the team before use
Each correction fed back into the system
Send us a drawing set you have already measured
Pick a set from a job your team has already measured. We measure it, you compare our quantities with yours line by line, and every difference points to a sheet. We answer within two business hours.
How a deployment runs: Observe, Map, Build, Run, Expand. See the method
Prefer to talk it through first? Book a call
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
SOURCES
Checked on 1 October 2026. The quantities in the example table are invented; the NRM2 references are real.
- RICS, NRM: New rules of measurement: the three NRM volumes: NRM 1 for order of cost estimating and cost planning of capital building works, NRM 2 for detailed measurement of building works, NRM 3 for building maintenance works.
- RICS, NRM 2: Detailed measurement for building works, 2nd edition UK (PDF): section 2.1 on the purpose of a bill of quantities (tendering, then valuing interim payments and varied work), and the work section and item numbers used in the example table.
CONTRACTS AND COMPARISONS
DECISIONS AND TOOLS