SJQS includes a complete set of measurement tools for PDF takeoff, a flexible trade/subheading/label structure, and export tools built for handover. Built by a practicing quantity surveyor around the job as it actually runs.
Every tool produces a labelled, named annotation on the drawing — organised by trade, summed automatically, and ready to export. Most tools can also be converted to a related type after the fact via right-click, without redrawing.
Click two points to measure a straight-line distance. The fundamental takeoff tool — used for walls, beams, ducts, pipes, and any linear element with a clear start and end.
Click along a continuous path across multiple points. The total length of all connected segments is accumulated into a single measurement item — suited to perimeters, continuous runs, and any element that changes direction.
Define a closed boundary by clicking around a region. SJQS calculates the area of the enclosed polygon. Supports deductions within the boundary and per-annotation unit assignment.
Draw the footprint of an element as a closed polygon, then enter the depth or height. SJQS outputs the volume directly. Used for concrete pours, earthworks, fill material.
Click each instance of an element to place a labelled marker. Items are tallied automatically. Used for doors, windows, fixings, columns, fittings, and anything priced by unit quantity.
Draw the extents of a repeating element — studs, joists, rafters, battens — then enter the centre-to-centre spacing. SJQS calculates the total number and length of members automatically.
Measure a length on the plan and enter the corresponding height or width. SJQS outputs the resulting area — useful for wall finishes, cladding runs, and fencing.
Measure a length on plan and enter the cross-sectional dimensions. SJQS outputs the volume — used for beams, columns, kerbs, and channels.
Arc support is not a separate mode — it is built into every measurement tool. Right-click after placing a point to convert the segment into an arc. A bulge handle appears, which can be dragged to match the curve precisely.
Right-click conversion between types. Once a measurement has been placed, many types can be converted to a related type without redrawing. A length can be right-clicked and changed to area by length or length by volume — a measurement placed early in the takeoff can be updated as the scope becomes clearer, without losing the annotation or starting over.
A flexible trade/subheading/label structure that works whether you plan ahead or measure first and organise later.
Every measurement sits inside a trade, and optionally a subheading and a label, but none of that has to be set up in advance. Open a PDF, pick a trade, and start measuring. An unlabelled polyline shows up in the pane as exactly that: "(unlabelled polyline)." Double-click it whenever you're ready to name it.
If you'd rather set structure up first, you can do that too. Select your trade, choose or create a subheading like "Wall framing," pick a label like "WT1," and measure straight into it. Both approaches work, and you can mix them freely within the same job: rough it out fast and label as you go, or plan the structure up front and measure into it. SJQS doesn't force either.
Each trade carries its own colour by default, so a 200-page drawing set stays legible at a glance, before you've read a single label.
Labels carry forward automatically. Measure and label an item, and your next measurement inherits the same label until you change it or set something new, so a repeated item across a job doesn't mean relabelling every instance by hand.
Nothing is fixed once it's placed. Right-click any measurement to change its trade, subheading, or label without redrawing it, and this works retroactively too. If you're 50 items into Carpentry and realise you should have split it into subheadings, you can assign the label to a subheading now rather than starting over. In the takeoff pane, hold Ctrl and click to select several items at once and reassign or move them together, useful when a whole block needs to shift at once rather than one at a time.
Copy and paste. Any measurement can be copied and pasted directly — geometry, label, trade, and subheading all come with it. Paste WT1, a 1m polyline, and you now have two WT1 polylines, both 1m, and the takeoff pane updates immediately to reflect it. Useful for repeated items at a known dimension, or as a quick starting point to duplicate then adjust.
SJQS works fully in both measurement systems. Calibrate a page in metric and measure in imperial, or the other way round — the system you scale in and the system you measure in don't have to match, and you can switch per project without disturbing any existing measurements.
Two automatic, self-updating stamps that keep a plan honest about how it was scaled and what's been measured on it.
Once a page is calibrated, SJQS stamps it automatically with the scale used and the method by which it was set. Anyone opening the file later — a colleague, a client, yourself in six months — can see exactly how that page was scaled without having to ask or recalibrate to check.
Stamp any page with a live summary table of the measurements on it. If a measurement on that page changes after the stamp is placed, the stamp visibly changes colour to show it's gone stale — right-click to refresh it. Try to export a page with a stale stamp still showing, and SJQS prompts you to update it first.
For structural steel, reinforcement, and any element where a weight quantity is the practical output rather than a linear or area measure.
SJQS includes a Convert to Weight tool with a dedicated interface. Select a measurement and open the conversion panel — enter the material density or select from saved conversions, choose kg or tonnes as the output unit, and SJQS applies the conversion to produce a weight quantity from the measured dimension.
Conversions can be named and saved for reuse across projects. If you work regularly with specific steel sections, reinforcement bar sizes, or proprietary materials with known densities, those conversions persist in the interface and can be applied in a single step on future jobs.
Weight conversion is particularly useful where the structural drawings show member lengths or quantities but the procurement schedule needs kilograms or tonnes — converting directly within SJQS avoids a separate spreadsheet step.
Revised drawings are a fact of life on most projects. SJQS handles them without requiring a takeoff to be discarded and started again.
When a revised plan sheet arrives mid-takeoff, the standard workflow elsewhere is to either start that sheet again or manually check every annotation against the new drawing. Neither is efficient. SJQS has a built-in page replacement and overlay system that handles this directly.
The overlay is a visual diff between drawing revisions — changes in geometry, element positions, and scope are visible immediately without a separate comparison process.
Export a quantity schedule, marked-up drawing sheets, or both — filtered by trade, with waste factors applied where needed.
The schedule and plans outputs can be produced independently or combined. A combined export — quantity schedule followed by the relevant marked-up drawing sheets — is a complete, self-contained handover document ready for issue to a subcontractor or client without further formatting.
Waste percentages are entered per item or applied across a trade in a single step. The export shows net quantity, the waste percentage applied, and the resulting order quantity as separate columns, giving the recipient full transparency on how the quantities were derived.
SJQS is a Windows desktop application — no browser, no internet connection required, no account to manage. Open a PDF, calibrate the scale directly from the plan, and begin measuring. Drawings never leave the machine.
The scale calibration works per page and across mixed-scale drawing sets. A project with architectural drawings at 1:100 and structural details at 1:20 can be measured in the same file without manual adjustment between sheets.
Measurement tools support deductions within the boundary — an area annotation can have openings, penetrations, or exclusions subtracted from the gross measurement without separate items. The net quantity is calculated automatically.
The pitch factor is available on area measurements for sloped surfaces — roofs, ramps, battered embankments — where the plan area differs from the actual surface area that needs to be measured.
Everything produced in a session can be exported immediately — no upload, no processing delay, no cloud rendering queue.
The 14-day trial gives full access to every tool described on this page. No credit card required, no account needed to start.
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