Zones

🗺️ A Zone (Z) restricts a takeoff to part of a sheet. Draw a boundary around an area and PixelTakeoff reports quantities for what falls inside it.

Use zones when one drawing covers work that has to be reported separately: phases, blocks, plots, villa types, or a split between two contractors. You take off the whole sheet once, then read it back per zone rather than measuring the same drawing several times.

Drawing a zone

1. Select Zone (Z).
2. Click around the area you want to enclose, one point per corner.
3. Close the shape to finish.

Zones can be any shape, including concave ones such as an L shaped plot, so you do not have to settle for a rectangle around something irregular.

A zone sits over your takeoff. It does not change, move or delete anything you have measured, so drawing one is always safe.

Reading zone quantities

Open the zone to see Takeoffs in this zone, listing every group with quantity inside that zone:

Column	Meaning
Group	The takeoff group name
Color	Its colour, for matching against the drawing
Area	Area inside the zone
Length	Linear length inside the zone
Count	Count markers inside the zone
Volume	Volume inside the zone

Only groups with something inside the zone appear, so the list is a summary of that phase rather than of the whole sheet.

How quantities are attributed

This is the part worth understanding, because it is what makes zone totals trustworthy.

A region entirely inside a zone counts in full. No estimation is involved. Its quantity in the zone is exactly its quantity on the sheet.

A region crossing the boundary is split. Only the part inside is counted. The paving of a driveway that straddles two phases contributes its inside portion to each, and the two portions add back up to the whole driveway.

A linear run crossing the boundary is split the same way. Only the length inside counts.

A count marker counts if its centre is inside. Markers are whole items, so they are never split. A tree on the boundary belongs to the zone its marker centre sits in.

Overlapping zones

If two zones overlap, anything in the shared area is counted once, and it is attributed to the zone you drew first.

This is deliberate. If shared ground counted in both, adding your zone totals together would exceed the real quantity on the sheet, and you would over order and over bill. With earlier zone wins, the zone totals always add up to the whole.

Caution

Because the earlier zone wins, the order you draw zones in decides who gets the overlap. If two phases genuinely share an area, either draw the zones so they do not overlap, or check which zone claimed the shared part before reporting.

A practical workflow

1. Take off the entire drawing normally, ignoring phases.
2. Draw a zone around each phase.
3. Read each zone’s quantities and report them separately.

The advantage over measuring each phase separately is that the sheet is measured once, so the total across zones cannot disagree with the total for the drawing.

Common questions

Does a zone change my takeoff? No. It is a lens over work you have already done. Delete a zone and your takeoff is untouched.

Can a region be in more than one zone? Yes, if it crosses a boundary. Its quantity is split between them and the parts add up to the whole.

Why is a zone total lower than I expected? Check whether a region you assumed was inside actually crosses the boundary, in which case only part of it counts. Also confirm no group is hidden, since hidden groups are excluded from totals everywhere.

Can I export per zone? Yes, zone quantities are available for reporting. See Summary and export.