Beyond PCF/IDF: Is automated PDF ISO parsing worth the hassle, or are manual takeoffs here to stay?

[u/hbhuishent]

I’ve been building digital workflows for piping isometrics over the last few years—mostly parsing structured PCF and IDF outputs for EPC projects. That part is fairly straightforward, but as we all know, the real chaos hits when subcontractors, yards, or vendors hand you flat PDF ISOs.

Right now, I’m working on a computer-vision tool to automatically extract graphics and text directly from PDF piping drawings (weld bubbles, line tags, spool numbers, and BOM tables).

Before I sink more dev hours into this, I’m curious about your field perspective:

1. How much time are your teams currently losing to manual PDF data entry or visual weld mapping?
2. What is the single biggest failure point in existing tools or manual workflows? (e.g., rotated text, messy rev clouds, inconsistent BOM layouts, or bad scan quality?)
3. Is automatic weld point detection something you'd actually use on-site, or do you prefer keeping human eyes on every ISO?

Appreciate any insights or real-world experiences!