Drawing Tools
There are a number of tools that are designed specifically to make your takeoff efficient and accurate. Not every tool is useful in every situation, but the right tool can make even the most difficult takeoff easy.
Depending on what you’re attempting to takeoff, we will recommend different tools, but you can try different tools for different takeoff to find the fastest way for you.
Tip: If you takeoff incorrectly, you can use Undo to reverse your last action.
Polyline
A polyline is a sequence of one or more straight lines or curves. You can use the Polyline tool by clicking the corners or points of the shape you’re tracing or drawing.
Tip: If you are using a vectorised plan, hold SHIFT to enable point snapping for better accuracy.
To draw a curved line, click the start of the curve then click and hold the mouse button at the end of the curve, then drag your cursor towards to curve the line.
Tip: Sometimes to accurately trace a curve you might need a few smaller curves.
Polyline is an intelligent tool, so depending on what you're taking off, will determine how your Polyline finishes. If you’re drawing a contour and right-mouse click, your line will complete on your previous mouse click. If you’re drawing an area that requires to be closed, like a structure, the right-mouse-click will close the shape between the previous point and the starting point.
Transmute
Transmute is the most powerful tool in MudShark. Transmute has two main uses; with a 3D vector plan you can automatically takeoff an entire layer for contours or spots and you can automatically takeoff lines, curves, and various shapes from a plan in the Viewport.
To Transmute an entire contour layer or spot layer from a plan with 3D details, you click Transmute then select the layer from the Plan pane.
To Transmute from a plan in the Viewport, you can click the entity from the plan.
Transmute Dashed
When you need to takeoff dashed lines from a plan, whether its contours or structures using dashed lines, you’ll want to use the Transmute Dashed. Much like polyline, mouse click on the line, and then keep clicking along the line to continue. Right-mouse click to complete to your previous mouse click.
Transmute Area
To takeoff an enclosed area, you can use Transmute Area to automatically find an area and create boundaries for it. When using Transmute Area, you can hover over the area you want to takeoff, and you will see a preview of the boundary area, when the preview shows the area you want the boundaries for, right-mouse click to complete it.
Point
Points are a useful takeoff tool, used for entering spots, boring points and counts.
Offset
The Offset tool lets you select Offset Input or Offset Selected.
Offset Input will let you draw a line then enter an offset distance and angle to create a new line.
Offset Selected will let you select a line from your plan or takeoff then enter an offset distance and angle to create a new line.
Extrude
The Extrude tool lets you select Extrude Input or Extrude Selected.
Extrude Input will let you draw a line then enter an offset distance and angle to create a new area using the boundary of the drawn line and offset.
Extrude Selected will let you select a line then enter an offset distance and angle to create a new area using the boundary of the selected line and offset.