It’s hard to think of a slide rule as being an ancient artifact that belongs in the Museum of Old Estimating Tools. Yet the rapid pace of today’s technology relegates it to the primitive display- right alongside graph paper, column ledger pads, pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, triangular scales, colored pencils, colored highlighters, dividers and protractors.
These once essential tools for quantity takeoff have been replaced with super-fast software that empowers estimators to do in hours what they once did in days. Remember way back when - earlier in this century when blueprints were actually blue or on a black background with notes, images and lines were white? Today, drawings are viewed on our computers in the office or on the go with our mobile devices. We even use Building Information Modeling systems for projects and determining takeoff quantities and drones to supply data points for maps.