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Structural drawing review for Indian projects

Upload a DXF, PDF or IFC drawing to read what it names into one list, then review a PDF sheet as a document: what it documents, where it disagrees with itself, and what it specifies — every line quoted from the drawing, and nothing checked against an Indian Standard.

  • 5 StructCheck drawing parses, 3 drawing reviews and 5 exports per month
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The problem

Reviewing a structural drawing starts with bookkeeping: reading off what the sheet names, checking it is a complete document (title block, revisions, scale, grades, cover, the sections its callouts point at) and finding where it contradicts itself. Then the engineering begins.

Plenty of structural sheets carry no member schedule at all, only notes and callouts, so a tool that only lists "members" has nothing to list.

For Indian projects StructCheck therefore does two things, and checks nothing against any Indian Standard. It reads what the drawing names into one list, and for a PDF it reviews the sheet as a document, quoting it line by line.

How it works

  1. Upload a drawing as DXF, PDF or IFC. There are no soil class or exposure class inputs for India: no rule here uses them.
  2. Select Read drawing. From a DXF it reads text labels and blocks that give a member mark or a section, on any layer not named for another discipline; linework with no label is reported, never turned into a member, and what it did not read is counted. From an IFC, the beam, column, slab, footing and wall elements; from a PDF, schedule tables from its text layer and sheets from page images.
  3. It reads Indian notation: ISMB300 (IS 808:2021 form: MB 300), ISMC150, RHS and SHS, and grades such as M25, Fe500 and E250. Only an IS beam or channel family its catalogue lists depths for is compared with it: a depth outside that list, such as ISMB320, is kept as drawn and marked unverified. A designation from a family it holds no catalogue for (angles, hollow sections, and the NPB, WPB and ISNB families) is kept as drawn and marked unverified too.
  4. Read the item list, grouped by row type: member, reinforcement, anchor, foundation, note or other. An INCOMPLETE line says so if a PDF ran past your plan's page limit, a page's image could not be read, or a page the page classifier did not take for a structural sheet was left unread.
  5. For a PDF, select Review drawing. A large sheet is cut into overlapping regions and read twice, on two grids offset by half a region, because one read of a shrunk sheet gets digits wrong. Documentation: found or not found for the title block, revisions, the drawn and checked names, the issue stamp, scale, levels, grades, cover, notes and whether the section callouts resolve. Consistency: statements that differ, both quoted, with no word on which is right. Specified: what the drawing states, by element.
  6. Every line says where on the sheet it was read and what backs it: matched to the sheet's own text, read twice with both reads agreeing, or read once only. Only the last is amber. Where the two reads of one value disagree, no value is given — you get a finding naming both readings instead.
  7. Export both as CSV, XLSX or PDF.

The review is for PDFs only: a CAD or model file has no sheet to read, so asking for one there is refused and not charged.

Worked example

Illustrative inputs, not a real project: suppose the parse of a small DXF returned these three items.

  • B1, a steel beam labelled ISMB300 E250
  • C1, a column labelled 300x450 M25
  • F1, a footing labelled 1500x1500, with no grade

StructCheck raises no flags at all and reports all three as not checked. An automated test runs these items through StructCheck's own code and fails if this result changes. Being a DXF, it gets no drawing review.

No flags is not a clean result, and the screen does not read like one. With no Indian rule to apply, nothing ran, not even the missing-grade warning.

What it doesn't do

  • It is not a design check and not a code review. Nothing is tested against IS 456, IS 800, IS 1893, IS 13920 or NBC 2016. No clause is cited, no minimum is checked, and no result is a pass. The engineer who signs the design remains responsible.
  • The review is not an engineer's review. It reads the sheet as a document: what is on it, where it disagrees with itself, and what it says. It cannot tell you whether any of it is right.
  • It can miss items entirely. Items can be misread or missed, and something never extracted never appears as a problem.
  • It reads common notation only. Its IS catalogue has not been verified by an engineer, and other conventions may return few items or none.
  • Its results are advisory. AI reads PDF pages, so two runs of one file can differ, up to a whole page. Verify every value against the sheet before use.

Standards StructBy AI holds summaries of for India

Our own plain-English summaries, covering a fraction of each standard; they are not the text of the standards, and not every tool uses every one. Our NBC summaries are based on NBC 2016, which BIS withdrew on 30 April 2026 when it established SP 7:2026, National Building Construction Standards 2026.

  • NBC 2016
  • IS 456 — Concrete
  • IS 800 — Steel
  • IS 875 — Loads
  • IS 1893 — Seismic
  • IS 1904 — Foundations
  • IS 13920 — Ductile detailing

Questions engineers ask

Does it check drawings against IS 456, IS 800 or NBC 2016?

No. Nothing is tested against any Indian Standard or against NBC 2016. No rule tests a member's size, span, strength, detailing or connections, no clause is cited, no minimum value is checked, and no result is a pass. The engineer who signs the design is responsible for it.

What does the drawing review actually give me?

Three sections, every line quoting the sheet and naming the page and the part of it the quote was read in. A large sheet is cut into overlapping regions and read twice, on two grids offset by half a region: a whole A1 sheet shrunk to what the AI can take in is not legible. Documentation: found or not found for the title block, revisions, the drawn and checked names, the issue stamp, scale, levels, grades, cover, notes and whether the section callouts resolve. Consistency: statements that differ, both quoted, with no word on which is right. Specified: what the drawing states, by element.

Does a result with no flags mean the drawing is fine?

No, and the screen says so. For India no rule runs at all, so every item is reported not checked and there is nothing for a flag to be raised about. The review tells you what the sheet documents and where it disagrees with itself; it cannot tell you whether any of it is right.

How do I know a quoted value was really read off the sheet?

Every quote says what backs it. 'Matched to the sheet's text' means the page's own text layer carries those exact words. 'Read twice from the image, both reads agree' means the text layer could not confirm it, but two differently-positioned reads of that part of the sheet produced the same value. 'Read once from the image' means a second read did not produce it — that one is amber. Most drawing lettering is drawn as outlines with no text behind it, so amber is common on a good drawing and is not a claim that the value is wrong. And where the two reads of one value disagree, no value is given at all: you get a finding naming both readings, because the review cannot tell which is right.

Which file formats can I upload, and which get a review?

DXF, PDF and IFC are all read into the item list. The size limits are 50 MB for DXF, 100 MB for PDF and 200 MB for IFC. The drawing review is for PDFs only, because a CAD or model file has no sheet to read; asking for one on a DXF or IFC is refused and not charged. Only the first pages of a long PDF are read, up to your plan's page limit.

Which notation does it read?

Indian section designations written label-first, such as ISMB300, ISMC150 or ISHB250 (or in the IS 808:2021 form, such as MB 300), hollow sections such as RHS and SHS, and grade designations such as M25, Fe500 and E250. Only the IS beam and channel families its catalogue lists depths for are compared with it, and a depth outside that list is marked unverified. A designation from a family it holds no catalogue for (angles, hollow sections, and the NPB, WPB and ISNB families) is kept as drawn and marked unverified too. Drawings that use other notation, block names or layer names may return few items or none.

Related tools

Try it on your next job. Every output is a starting point for a qualified engineer to check.

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StructBy AI outputs are automated or AI-assisted and must be reviewed by a qualified engineer before anyone relies on them. They are not professional engineering, legal or regulatory advice, and they do not replace a site-specific hazard assessment, a geotechnical investigation or a registered engineer. References to NBC 2016 and the IS codes are summaries and pointers, not the text of those documents, so verify every value and clause against the current NBC and BIS publications before you use it in design or documentation.