A professional using Bluebeam Revu software to scale markups on a digital construction blueprint, ensuring precise measurements and streamlined collaboration.

Achieve Flawless Accuracy: How to Scale Markups in Bluebeam Like a Pro

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks, Tips and Tricks
From calibration to scaled annotations, this guide reveals how Bluebeam’s tools can transform your project accuracy.

In construction and design, precision isn’t just a goal—it’s a necessity. Digital tools like Bluebeam Revu have revolutionized workflows by enabling greater accuracy, efficiency and collaboration.

Among its standout features is the ability to adjust markups to align perfectly with a drawing’s scale. This functionality ensures that annotations, measurements and symbols remain proportional, helping teams interpret project documents with accuracy and consistency.

Let’s explore how scaling markups in Revu can transform your workflow and why it’s a must-have for professionals in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC).

Why Scaled Markups Matter for Precision and Accuracy in Bluebeam Revu

Accurate annotations and measurements are the backbone of any construction or design project. Misaligned or improperly scaled markups can lead to misunderstandings, inaccurate quantities and even costly mistakes. Revu eliminates these risks by allowing markups to automatically conform to the calibrated scale of your drawings.

Quick Steps to Activate the Dynamic Tool Set Scaler

Follow these simple steps to ensure your markups are perfectly scaled and proportional to your drawing:

  • Calibrate the Drawing: Select a known measurement (wall length) and input its real-world dimensions to establish accuracy.
  • Open the Tool Chest: Navigate to the Tool Chest panel to access your saved toolsets.
  • Select a Toolset: Click on your desired toolset and then hit the gear icon to configure the scale.
  • Set the Scale: Choose from preset architectural or engineering scales or input a custom scale tailored to your project.
  • Apply Scaled Markups: Start adding annotations, measurements or symbols—Revu automatically resizes them to match your drawing’s scale.

This feature is particularly valuable when working with complex, multi-page PDFs that include varying scales—such as detailed floor plans alongside elevation views. By ensuring uniformity across all documents, Revu empowers teams to collaborate seamlessly and avoid costly errors.

Revolutionize Your Workflow with the Dynamic Tool Set Scaler in Bluebeam Revu

At the heart of Revu’s scaling capabilities lies the Dynamic Tool Set Scaler. This tool ensures that all markups are proportional to the drawing’s scale, whether it’s a preset or custom calibration.

Here’s how to use it effectively:

Calibrate Your Drawing: Start by calibrating the drawing. Select a known measurement—like a wall length or doorway width—and input its real-world dimensions. This step establishes a baseline for all future markups, ensuring accuracy from the outset.

Activate the Dynamic Tool Set Scaler: Access the scaler by navigating to the Tool Chest, selecting a toolset and clicking the gear icon to set the scale. Choose from preset architectural or engineering scales or input a custom scale tailored to your project’s needs.

Apply Scaled Markups: Once the scaler is activated, all your markups—whether they’re measurements, annotations or symbols—will automatically resize to match the drawing’s scale. This eliminates manual adjustments and ensures consistent proportions across the document.

Handle Multi-Scale Drawings with Ease: For projects with documents featuring multiple viewports or sections at different scales, the Dynamic Tool Set Scaler allows you to set unique scales for each section. This flexibility ensures precision even in the most complex layouts.

Pro Tip: Save Your Scales for Future Projects

Maximize efficiency by saving your frequently used custom scales in Revu. This simple step ensures that your preferred scales are always at your fingertips, streamlining your workflow and maintaining consistency across teams.

  • Save Time: No need to recalibrate or redefine scales for similar projects—simply reuse your saved settings.
  • Boost Accuracy: Ensure all team members are working with the correct, pre-approved scales.
  • Enhance Collaboration: Keep everyone aligned by sharing saved scales across your projects.

With saved scales, you can reduce setup time, maintain precision and focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional work.

Tailoring Your Workflow with Customizable Scale Options in Bluebeam Revu

Bluebeam Revu offers both preset and customizable scale options to fit any project. Whether you’re working with standard scales or unique dimensions, you can configure and save scales for future use. Additionally, you can apply separate X and Y scales for situations where proportions differ along each axis. These options provide unmatched versatility, making Revu adaptable to any drawing format.

Achieving Precision with Manual Calibration in Bluebeam Revu

When working with older or improperly scaled PDFs, Revu’s calibration feature becomes invaluable. By manually calibrating a drawing—measuring a known dimension directly within the PDF—you can quickly apply an accurate scale, even to complex or unconventional documents. This feature allows you to calibrate a single page or apply the calibration across multiple pages, streamlining the process.

Enhancing Workflow Efficiency with Bluebeam Revu

The ability to scale markups dynamically streamlines workflows and minimizes errors, saving time and improving outcomes. Whether you’re annotating multi-layered architectural plans or coordinating input from various team members, scaled markups ensure that all annotations are clear, consistent and proportional.

For collaborative projects, this feature is a game-changer. With team members contributing across different sections of a document, scaled markups ensure everyone’s input aligns with the established measurements, reducing confusion and enhancing communication.

Key Takeaways for Boosting Precision with Bluebeam Revu

In the AEC industry, where precision and teamwork are paramount, Bluebeam Revu’s scaling tools prove essential. By utilizing the Dynamic Tool Set Scaler and calibration features, you can achieve greater accuracy, optimize workflows and execute projects with certainty and efficiency.

Whether you’re an architect refining a design or a contractor reviewing plans, Revu empowers you to work smarter. With these tools, your markups will always reflect the true scale of the project—saving time, reducing errors and ensuring clarity at every stage.

Visit Bluebeam support to master scaling tools and calibration.

LEARN MORE
Engineer working at a dual-monitor workstation displaying detailed infrastructure plans and Arcadis software, emphasizing digital tools in modern construction project management.

How Arcadis Transformed Global Collaboration with Bluebeam

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
By embracing Bluebeam’s digital collaboration tools, Arcadis revolutionized its global project management, driving efficiency, improving accuracy and cutting down on delays across international teams and complex infrastructure projects

Managing complex infrastructure projects across continents is no small feat.

For Arcadis, a global design and consulting firm with 35,000 employees spread across 70 countries, ensuring seamless collaboration was both a challenge and a necessity. The stakes were particularly high in Australia, where 1,300 employees were engaged in major linear infrastructure projects involving numerous global stakeholders.

Arcadis faced a critical decision: modernize its project management process or risk falling behind. Its choice: Bluebeam, a digital collaboration platform that revolutionized the way the firm worked—boosting productivity, enhancing accuracy and reducing environmental impact along the way.

Overcoming Cross-Border Collaboration Challenges

For years, Arcadis relied on outdated paper-based processes for managing project reviews and markups. Engineers and designers working in different time zones had to wait for physical markups to be scanned and emailed—a process that frequently caused delays, miscommunication and version control issues.

The environmental toll was significant, too. Arcadis’ sustainability goals clashed with the considerable amount of paper consumed in its manual workflows. Reducing its carbon footprint became a priority.

“By using the capabilities of Bluebeam such as Studio Sessions we’ve established a centralized way of managing all our comments, reviews and also having a standardized approach to our markup, a quality control process,” said Steven Coyle, digital lead for Australia Mobility at Arcadis.

Transforming Project Management with Bluebeam’s Digital Tools

Recognizing the need for change, Arcadis adopted Bluebeam, transforming how it managed project workflows. Bluebeam’s suite of tools enabled real-time document sharing, centralized project markups and streamlined quality control processes—all within a single, cloud-based environment.

The firm quickly developed best-practice protocols using Bluebeam’s platform, standardizing markups and creating a centralized method for managing comments and reviews. These changes brought newfound efficiency and transparency to the firm’s global operations.

Game-Changing Results: A Blueprint for Project Success

Real-Time Global Collaboration: With Bluebeam, Arcadis’ global teams could access and edit the same documents simultaneously, regardless of location. What once took days now took mere hours, dramatically reducing project turnaround times.

“There were two things that prompted Arcadis to use Bluebeam,” said Sergio Fuentes, associate technical director of digital engineering for New South Wales Civil Infrastructure at Arcadis. “One of them was coordination and collaboration. Considering the size of our projects, the complexity of them and the number of stakeholders that we have, we needed to find an effective way to communicate, and Bluebeam provided that.”

Improved Accountability and Standardization: Bluebeam enabled Arcadis to create a standardized process for reviews and markups, ensuring that every team member followed the same project protocols. This improved accuracy, reduced errors and fostered a culture of accountability.

Enhanced Client and Partner Collaboration: Arcadis also used Bluebeam’s collaboration features to improve communication with clients and joint venture partners. Using interactive dashboards and detailed markups, team members could share project updates with stakeholders in a clear, professional manner.

Boosted Productivity and Reduced Delays: By cutting out paper-based bottlenecks, Arcadis empowered its teams to work faster and more efficiently. Tasks that once required physical markups and delayed responses could now be completed in real time—whether team members were in the office or working remotely.

Industry Expertise: Driving Innovation Through Digital Transformation

Behind Arcadis’ transformation is a clear strategy centered on standardization, automation and data-driven processes.

“Bluebeam improves collaboration by allowing both drafters and engineers to access the same document with the same version in real time,” said Mark Javillo, principal CAD technician and BIM manager at Arcadis, “which reduces miscommunication and ensures project update consistency.”

Why It Matters: Key Takeaways for the AEC Industry

Arcadis’ experience with Bluebeam highlights an essential truth for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry: digital tools aren’t just helpful; they’re critical. In an era where project complexity and sustainability demands are only increasing, the ability to collaborate effectively across borders is a competitive advantage.

By reducing paper consumption and streamlining project management, Arcadis has not only boosted its productivity but also advanced its environmental goals—a win-win that many AEC firms can learn from.

Discover More: Explore the Full Arcadis Case Study Want to see how Arcadis redefined global collaboration with Bluebeam?

READ NOW
Ridge & Partners Bluebeam

How Ridge & Partners Boosts Efficiency, Accuracy with Bluebeam

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
From document management to design reviews, Ridge & Partners explains how Bluebeam has streamlined its processes and improved communication

Ridge & Partners started using Bluebeam around five years ago to support its QS team with accurate measurement when estimating potential jobs. From this introduction, the use case has been expanded within the business to include document management, design reviews, take-offs, estimations and the final professional handover of documentation to clients.

Nick Barringer is a partner at the firm. He said Bluebeam has transformed the way the business worked. “Our team was introduced to Bluebeam as a tool to make commenting and marking up of drawings more efficient,” he said. “At the time we didn’t see the way that we were doing things as a problem, but immediately saw the benefits once we had been introduced to the software.”

“It was initially used as an internal communication tool for marking up and commenting on drawings and reports,” he continued. “As our understanding of the software’s capability has increased, we are now able to use Bluebeam to produce high-quality sketches to communicate early design stage concepts, alongside detailed markups to assist the on-site construction teams.”

Collating project information

One of the areas where Bluebeam has made a difference is information management.Barringer said: “One of the biggest benefits is that we can easily collate and edit multiple PDF documents in one place. Our old way of working would involve printing, annotating and scanning a large quantity of paper hand markups.”

“Doing this digitally has saved us thousands in paper and printing costs and has made the whole workflow much more efficient in terms of time. It has also facilitated our transition to a truly paper-free office, reducing our environmental impact as a business.”’

Rhys ​​​​Griffiths is an associate at Ridge & Partners and works on the cost management team. He explained that Bluebeam has particularly helped with tender documentation.

“It’s the go-to tool for us,” he said. “We use it every day, and it helps us to work efficiently and securely. We produce a lot of tender documents and contract documents that all need to be collated and marked up. This can number anywhere from 10 to 100 documents, so we need to be able to work accurately in these files. Bluebeam helps us to send them out in a consistent format that looks professional.”

Design reviews are completed 50% faster and users can create high-quality professional drawings and sketches without using CADsoftware.

According to Griffiths, one of the primary reasons for investing in the software was to improve the accuracy of measurements. “With Bluebeam it’s very quick if you want to mark up a drawing or measure up an area,” he said. “A range of in-built functions help with this, including the scaling tools, markups and editing settings, and digital measurement tools including linear, area, polygon and dynamic fill. This saves time and gives us accurate results.”

Replacing the old way of doing things

When companies introduce new software, it can sometimes take time for it to become embedded within the business. Chris Mills is a senior associate at Ridge & Partners and specializes in civil and infrastructure projects. He argues that the efficiency gains with Bluebeam meant this was not the case.

“When you shift to a new tool, it’s always an interesting process as you adapt,” he said. “A lot of what Bluebeam does aligns with tasks that we already did manually. But the crucial thing is that it’s now about four or five times faster.”

“I used to enjoy working by hand, and I took pride in doing good quality sketches,” Mills said. “When I think about how long I used to spend doing that, as well as scanning documents and redoing things when needed, it’s not comparable. Now I can work in real time and it’s so fast. I wouldn’t go back.”

Mills added that Bluebeam is also useful when working with others to explain concepts and ideas.

“The speed at which we can now produce sketches and drawings means that we can even use it on the fly, which helps if you need to quickly explain a concept to someone,” Mills said. “When doing this on paper, if you make a mistake, you’re either restarting or having to use Tipp-Ex. That feels so last century now.”

Checking for accuracy

Mills also explained how Bluebeam can help maintain accuracy and consistency throughout the project. “We’ll take a snip of the architect section and then draw on top of it and annotate it before sending the information out to the relevant people,” he said.

The Ridge & Partners team have experienced improved productivity and efficiency gains since switching to Bluebeam, first with estimations and then other critical workflows.

“If we’re reviewing two drawings and we need to see what’s changed, you can use the Overlay and Compare tool, which places the drawings on top of each other and you can clearly see where the colours clash. On one recent project it was invaluable. We had to check hundreds of drawings and see where any changes had occurred, and that function was a game changer.”

“Ordinarily, it would take days to go through that many drawings,” Mills added. “It saved us a huge amount of time.”

Starting with Bluebeam

Alex Hall works in the building services team. He said Bluebeam is used from the moment he gets involved in a project. “If I’m given an architectural floor plan and I’ve got to do a survey, I’ll use Bluebeam to mark it up,” he said. “That’ll include color coding rooms and overlaying where the electrical and heating services are. That gives us a reference point to check against as part of our QA processes, comparing what we’ve captured against the final drawings.”

Hall added that he can use it to create quick professional designs himself, rather than relying on the technical team to draw something in AutoCAD or Revit, which saves around two or three days each time.

Document management is more streamlined. Teams communicate more effectively with clients and on-the-ground construction teams.

The ability to edit is a further benefit. “It’s simple to remove things from drawings that aren’t relevant, adding clarity to plans and making it easier for us to work with,” Hall said. “Even something as simple as the color processing tool is so helpful. If an architect has sent us a color drawing, I can convert to grayscale and then use color to overlay the areas that I’m focused on.”

Demonstrating professionalism

One of the final benefits the team mentioned was the ability to make documents consistent and presentable for clients. Barringer concluded: “Bluebeam helps us to make professional customer documents that are locked down and secure. Using Bluebeam as a presentation tool means the team can quickly sketch up and demonstrate things in meetings for internal meetings and with clients.”

“A lot of people would never have thought that it was done in Bluebeam—they’d assume that it had been done in AutoCAD or Revit,” Barringer added. “It allows us to get information out the door much quicker without having to be proficient in CAD software.”

New to Bluebeam? Give it a try!

DOWNLOAD
Modern Fire Protection Bluebeam

How Modern Fire Protection Is Revolutionizing Fire Safety with Bluebeam

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
By combining Bluebeam’s digital tools with a commitment to Indigenous partnerships, Modern Fire Protection is setting new industry standards

Australia-based Modern Fire Protection is a family owned and operated fire protection company that has been providing high quality services since 2015. Delivering comprehensive, cost-effective fire protection solutions, Modern Fire Protection works alongside its partners from concept design and supply to installation and ongoing service and maintenance for any size project.

Recognized as a Certified Supplier for Supply Nation, Modern Fire Protection has developed a range of partnerships with other Indigenous-controlled organizations and is focused on developing a culturally safe and capable environment. 

“We are continually striving to increase our Indigenous workforce and the employment of women undertaking apprenticeships,” said Bill Hockley, the company’s managing director.

With extensive experience across diverse requirements such as high-rise residential buildings, shopping centers, major commercial buildings, mine sites and complex special hazard installations, Modern Fire has a broad footprint across southeast Queensland. Robina Shopping Centre, Sunshine Coast Plaza, Brisbane Airport, Logan Hospital and Brisbane Racing Club are among the sites its expert service has helped protect.

A trusted solution

Trust is central in a business where its stock and trade is building safety.

Modern Fire ensures its trusted reputation is backed by accreditations and industry certifications, and that its workers are all suitably qualified in their roles.

Alongside its strong team presence, the organization is firmly focused on implementing tools that enhance its reputation through increased transparency, accuracy and productivity, including Bluebeam.

Crossing the digital divide

Modern Fire first deployed Bluebeam tools in early 2023. “Before Bluebeam we printed everything out and used highlighters,” Hockley said. “It meant that after the bid was developed, the project manager didn’t have easy access to all the information he needed.”

Deploying Bluebeam not only built time and accuracy improvements into the bidding process, but it also meant digital information was accessible when projects came to life.

“Bluebeam has revolutionised how we operate; it is one of our foundational tools,” Hockley said. “Through using its tools we minimise redundancy, boost accuracy and expedite critical tasks—all of which cultivate trust with our customers.”

Designing success through Bluebeam

Construction Manager Dan Sawyer implements Bluebeam from the inception of the design process.

“I use if for everything I touch—I live in it,” he said. “When competing for tenders I am able to save the detailed drawings and all detail that underpins our bid development. We then use this detail to inform and develop an accurate project plan when we win the contract.”

Bluebeam offers a plug-in for Revit that enhances the design process by integrating 3D components with 2D drafting annotations. This tool facilitates coordination with design teams and streamlines the development of design solutions.

Managing multiple and diverse priorities with ease

Project Manager Josh Hall considers real-time collaboration as key to his successful delivery of multiple and concurrent priorities. “The simple fact is that Bluebeam does exactly what I need it to do—it makes my job easier to do and do well,” he said. “It should be a non-negotiable tool across all organizations in the construction industry.

The key tasks Hall deploys Bluebeam for include:

– To communicate clearly using AEC-specific tools to mark up contracts, drawings, photos and documents.

– To complete drawing overlays and dimension planning up to scale.

– To review detailed planning and information and confirm project delivery requirements.

A long-term Bluebeam user, Hall joined Modern Fire on the condition that the product was a key tool he could access. “I’ve been using it for five years across various roles and it underpins my success in delivering optimized outcomes in project delivery,” he said.

Modern Fire Project Administrator Hanna Greaves first began harnessing the capability of Bluebeam and its tools six months ago.

“I do all of the quantity takeoffs for tender submissions—it’s a critical tool to ensure accuracy,” she said. “It is relatively straightforward to use and quite intuitive—it was easy to self-teach and to build my skills in unlocking the Bluebeam tools as I go. Before this everything was printed out and counted out using a highlighter. Time saving and accuracy has been a great outcome for me—in particular thanks to the search tool capability and categorization tools.”

Looking toward the future

“Tools such as Bluebeam mean we are better able to position Modern Fire Protection as a trusted and permanent force in the industry,” Sawyer said. “It provides the opportunity to embed better systems and processes and reinforce the foundation of our business as we head into the longer term.”

Bluebeam is a tool that is deployed prolifically among Modern Fire’s project partners.

“When working across projects such as staged medical or shopping center precincts with multiple partners, we are all able to talk to a common language, so to speak,” Sawyer said. “These tools enable real-time agility and responsiveness—enhancing our professionalism and elevating our position in the industry. It underpins our value and supports our future growth.”

New to Bluebeam? Give it a try!

DOWNLOAD
Bluebeam Studio Sessions vs. Studio Projects

Sessions vs. Projects: When to Use One, the Other—or Both

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
Bluebeam’s tool for real-time collaboration, Studio Sessions, and its tool for document storage, Studio Projects, are both invaluable to any construction project, but there are particular ways to use each—and both together—for optimal productivity (from 2022)

Illustration by Jonny Ruzzo

Ever since Bluebeam Studio Projects, which allows construction workers to store and share project documents, and Studio Sessions, which allows for real-time markup collaboration, came on the scene, the industry has benefitted from the numerous ways each tool bolsters productivity.

Still, there are particular instances on a construction project when using a Session makes more sense than using a Project—and vice versa. Moreover, there may be times when workers in the construction, engineering, architecture and operators (AECO) industry may think using one vs. the other makes sense for a specific workflow—when in fact the opposite may be true.

Here are some examples of when to use Studio Sessions, when to use Studio Projects and when to use both.

When to use Studio Sessions

Studio Sessions has established itself as a go-to tool for document collaboration. Sessions allows users to mark up documents with other users in real time, no matter their location. So long as the Session is created by the administrator, people can jump in and out at any time and mark up documents while also leaving comments for other collaborators. 

This digital collaboration can save a project major time and money by replacing the physical need to transport paper documents between stakeholders. It also eliminates the primitive digital process of emailing marked up PDF documents to several people, then having to manually consolidate each person’s revisions afterward.

The power of Sessions, however, can sometimes lead users to over rely on it or use it in ways that make it less efficient over time. Each Session, for instance, should have a clear time window—one or two weeks per round of revisions. Although it may be tempting to keep a Session open for the project’s duration, the tool is most effective when used in revision-by-revision increments.

Think of a Session as a replacement for a meeting, with collaborators sitting around a virtual “desk” with documents, marking them up and discussing revisions. Once the meeting ends, so should a Session.

Bluebeam Resource Hub

Browse case studies, watch webinars, and see what’s new with Bluebeam.
Explore Resources

When to use Studio Projects

Studio Projects is a powerful way to store, organize and share documents. For the largest construction projects that require thousands of documents that are accessible to many stakeholders, Projects is secure and effective.

Because of its heft as a storage tool, however, it’s not uncommon that sometimes Projects is used when a Session may be more appropriate and effective.

If a Session is a meeting, where people gather to collaborate in real time, Projects is the office, where everything is centrally located. Documents in a Project can be checked in and checked out, like a book in a library, and when documents are checked out, markups can be made if the proper permissions allow, before being checked back in. Document version history is also carefully recorded in a Project, so everyone knows who did what to a document and when.

This check-in/check-out system works best when there aren’t multiple collaborators. One collaborator may check out and make revisions to a document in isolation, before checking it back in for the next person to see at a different point in time.

But if there is ever a need for multiple collaborators, checking in and checking out documents in a Project becomes overly cumbersome—and potentially confusing. This is when initiating a Session makes sense. 

How to use both

Both Sessions and Projects, to be sure, are ultimately meant to be used in tandem, despite the fact that each has individual elements that make them useful on their own.

The best example is using Projects as a library of documents, which can be made available to any stakeholder who needs access to them. Individual documents can be checked in and checked out, downloaded, etc. Also, Projects can store any Windows-based file—so even Microsoft Word or Excel documents can be stored, checked out, worked on in their native application and checked back in—as well as images and DWG files.

Sessions, conversely, should occur within a Project when stakeholders need to hold specific, collaborative reviews of a document(s)—and those documents are only in the form of a PDF. Documents in a Project can be uploaded into a Session, and for a specific period of time collaborators should be invited to go in and make markups and comments before the Session is ended. What’s more, all changes made in a document in this scenario are saved back in the Project for all to view.

Both Projects and Sessions, furthermore, have the ability to carefully control who has permissions to documents. It may be wise, however, to maintain access to a Project only to stakeholders with ongoing and direct involvement in a build. Sessions, meanwhile, can be used to facilitate input on a document to an external third-party that doesn’t require full access or permissions to all documents.

While most construction workers might gravitate to one or the other, depending on the specific needs of a team or their role, using Bluebeam Projects and Sessions in tandem creates a special type of efficiency that is unmatched in construction technology.

Read more Bluebeam Tips & Tricks.

SHOW ME
Texas Tech Bluebeam

Texas Tech Produces Next-Gen Construction Leaders Thanks to Industry Tech

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
Texas Tech’s integration of cutting-edge tools like Bluebeam equips construction students with the tech skills needed to land high-paying jobs and excel in a rapidly evolving industry.

Don Bundock is a construction industry lifer.

Ask him to describe his interest and background in construction, and he’ll quickly reference a photo of him at age 4 looking attentively at a concrete pour. He’ll then mention his family history, a lineage of builders he says goes all the way back to the 15th century.

“I’m inclined to want to build things,” Bundock said, “because I come from a family of shipbuilders from the 1400s. So, I think I’m pretty much genetically inclined to be a construction guy.”

Bundock’s love of and connection to the construction trade is only rivaled by his admiration for and belonging to Lubbock and Texas Tech University.

Born and raised in the West Texas town, a place perhaps most famous for being the birthplace of early rock music legend Buddy Holly, the 80-year-old Bundock speaks with a deep Texas twang and is rarely seen without his Texas Tech ballcap comfortably fitted atop his head.

A 1969 Texas Tech graduate who went on to an illustrious engineering and construction career, including 30 years building locally in Lubbock and on the university’s campus, Bundock has spent the past seven years giving back as an instructor in the school’s Department of Civil, Environmental & Construction Engineering.

Teaching the Trade

Initially looking to ease into retirement by teaching one course, Bundock now teaches four courses encompassing 100 students. This gives him a unique front-row seat at the intersection of construction’s future workforce and contractors and other industry firms turning to the school to cultivate their next crop of talent.

Bundock is especially suited to teach the next generation of construction professionals because of his embrace of using technology to get the job done. Bundock says he’s been keen on extensively studying how the computing revolution that parallelled his professional life could be integrated into construction.

Don Bundock, who worked in the construction and engineering industry for more than 30 years, has been an instructor at Texas Tech since 2017.

“I’ll never forget a professor walking across the stage at my graduation in 1969 who said, ‘One of these days computers are going to be talking to one another all over the world,’ and everybody’s going, ‘Are you kidding?’” Bundock said.

“I was always interested in advancing technology, and that continues to this day.”

To this end, Bundock has made it a hallmark of his teaching career that his students are using the latest and greatest in construction industry technology. Chief among these tools is Bluebeam.

“[Bluebeam] has been mentioned by just about every contractor that I’ve interviewed here at Texas Tech,” he said.

From simple PDF viewing and editing to even the most advanced specialty features, Bluebeam is comprehensively taught at Texas Tech in Bundock’s courses. Bundock’s students say having Bluebeam knowledge has been pivotal when it comes to landing summer internships.

Propelling Students Forward

For some students, having software skills is crucial because the full-time staff of the companies recruiting them aren’t always proficient with the technology, offering the students a chance to make an immediate impact.

This was the case for Maria White, a construction engineering major and one of Bundock’s students who, as an intern for a real estate development company near Lubbock, proposed using Bluebeam for some of its advanced digital collaboration features to complete pay applications.

Jacob Sauder, a construction management major at Texas Tech, has used the Bluebeam acumen he learned while in school every day during a project engineering internship.

“The way we were previously doing pay applications is the project manager would email me, I’d print them, everything was hard copy and then I’d carry this massive file of pay applications. That was not efficient,” White recalled. “We had to find a better solution. And I was like, ‘Why don’t we use Bluebeam?’”

“Even though I was an intern, it left a lasting impact on the way the company runs things now when it comes to pay applications and just working together when people are in different places at the same time.”

Jacob Sauder, a construction management major and another of Bundock’s students, played a similar Bluebeam expert role during his project engineering internship. A vice president at his company needed a way to find similar elements throughout a 3,000-page construction document set in Bluebeam. Sauder showed him the search function in Bluebeam, which the vice president wasn’t previously aware of, and was able to help complete a task that may have previously taken hours in about a minute.

“I learned that [the Bluebeam search function] in professor Bundock’s class through having Bluebeam available to me,” Sauder said.

Building the Future

Bundock says the importance of technology is validated through his observations of employers that attend Texas Tech job fairs on campus. As soon as companies see Bluebeam and other high-level industry software tools on student resumes, they immediately want to talk to them about internships and other job opportunities after college.

Texas Tech University’s Department of Civil, Environmental & Construction Engineering produces construction industry professionals across a range of specialty disciplines. The school boasts of an employment rate above 90% for all its graduates.

“That’s what we want to see happening, where our students are getting credit for what they’re doing here at Texas Tech and they’re getting four and five job offers each,” Bundock said.

Bundock says he’s proud of the role Texas Tech is continuing to play by imparting its students with innovative construction industry technology, including Bluebeam. “We feel like we’re going to lead the way, and I think we’re setting the bar very high,” Bundock said. “People are going to have to jump to get ahead of us here at Texas Tech.”

New to Bluebeam? Give it a try!

START TRIAL TODAY
Burmor Construction Bluebeam

How Bluebeam Streamlined Residential Development for Burmor Construction

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
See how Burmor Construction used Bluebeam to improve accuracy, reduce delays and enhance client collaboration

When contractor Burmor Construction needed to accurately price a residential development, Bluebeam was the obvious choice.

Elliot Road is a residential development project comprising 30 new dwellings. It involved clearing an existing site and infilling new homes. To help the team coordinate the project effectively, Burmor used Bluebeam.

The tool provided huge time savings during both design and construction. During design, it made the process of measuring the different elements of the project very easy, and in construction it helped the project team and client to make faster decisions.

Designing with digital tools

Sam Harwin, senior quantity surveyor at Burmor, had been using Bluebeam for several years. When he joined the company, it was something he was keen to roll out.

“One of the biggest benefits is that it makes measurement so easy to do,” Harwin said. “That helps us to accurately price our jobs and order the right number of materials. We try to do everything digitally, and then export the measurements to Microsoft Excel to build the bill of quantities.”

Bluebeam Resource Hub

Browse case studies, watch webinars, and see what’s new with Bluebeam.
Explore Resources

As well as improving measurement, Bluebeam helped speed up design and reduce costs. For example, the team no longer needed to print multiple large drawings and complete markups by hand, which is time consuming and runs the risk of mistakes. This has led to a reduction in paper usage and has removed the need to purchase expensive printers. The team has even been able to reduce the size of its workspace.

Using software on site

During construction Bluebeam also helped the team to work on the project remotely, increasing approval speeds and avoiding delays.

Harwin said: “We had an issue on site when we cleared some vegetation. We found a boundary wall that was damaged. Instead of the client having to come to site and look before deciding, we digitally marked up the drawing, added a comment to explain what we’d found and then attached some photos. 

“This was all added to an email, with the client able to respond that day,” Harwin said. “In the past, something like that might have delayed a decision by up to a week, potentially causing a knock-on effect with other tasks.”

Increasing business efficiency

Using tools like Bluebeam is part of a wider strategy at Burmor to use technology to improve efficiencies.

“Like most businesses, we utilize Office 365 and OneDrive for our projects, with secure folders set up to share the latest documentation with clients and our supply chain partners,” Harwin said. “We’ve just started using drones to carry out site surveys too, allowing us to quickly review project progress.”

“While these are all useful, you also need tools that are specific to construction. Bluebeam is very versatile. It’s easy to use, is always up to date with the latest versions of documents and helps us to visually explain projects to our clients.”

“For example, we had to move some doors early in the design. It was easy to markup the drawing during the meeting, with the client able to decide there and then.”

Benefits for small contractors

To achieve benefits of any new software, construction businesses need to ensure they invest time and effort into the rollout process, according to Harwin.

“My advice to SMEs is that no matter what size you are, there is software that can help,” Harwin said. “Many construction businesses are doing the same thing and have similar needs—it might just be that for an SME this is on a smaller scale.” “We have found that software empowers smaller businesses to deliver work themselves that in the past they have had to go elsewhere for. We showed a bricklayer how to use Bluebeam’s measurement tool to help calculate the number of bricks they needed. Traditionally, they may have asked for QS support or discussed drawings with the architect, but they can do that themselves now using tools like Bluebeam.”

New to Bluebeam? Give it a try!

DOWNLOAD
Bluebeam Tool Chest

Working with the Bluebeam Tool Chest: A Guide for Electricians

  • Bluebeam Tips and Tricks
Discover how the Bluebeam Tool Chest can revolutionize your workflow as an electrician by providing a streamlined, efficient way to manage and reuse your most frequently used markups, ensuring precision and productivity in all your projects

As an electrician, your work demands precision and efficiency, especially when marking up electrical plans and blueprints. The Tool Chest in Bluebeam Revu can be your best ally, helping you streamline your markup process. This guide will show you how to leverage this powerful tool to enhance your productivity and accuracy.

Understanding the Tool Chest

The Tool Chest is designed to store and organize your frequently used markups, making them easily accessible whenever you need them. It automatically remembers your recent markups and can reapply them with their original properties or scale them to fit different drawings. This feature is especially useful for electricians, as it ensures that your tools are always at the right scale, saving you from the hassle of recreating them for each new project. And with the latest release of Revu 21.2, Tool Chest is even better, as users can now use search to quickly find and use markups based on Subject, Comment and Label search parameters (See more of what’s new in the latest release here).​

Saving Markups to the Tool Chest

Saving a markup from a PDF to the Tool Chest is straightforward. Right-click the markup, go to “Add to Tool Chest,” and select the desired tool set. This way, your electrical symbols and notes are always ready for reuse.

Placing Markups on a PDF

When you need to place a markup on a PDF, select the tool from the Tool Chest and click on the document. This quick and easy access ensures that you can efficiently mark up your electrical plans.

Managing Tools within Tool Sets

Organizing your tools is crucial for maintaining efficiency. To copy a tool from one set to another, simply drag its icon. You can also reorder tools by dragging them to your desired location. Deleting a saved tool is easy:

– Click the tool and hit the delete icon on the toolbar.

– Select the tool and press the DELETE key.

Bluebeam Resource Hub

Browse case studies, watch webinars, and see what’s new with Bluebeam.
Explore Resources

– Right-click the tool icon and choose “Delete.”

If you need a duplicate tool or want to change its color, right-click the tool icon and select “Duplicate” or “Change Colors” to customize your toolkit.

Reusing Recent Tools

The Recent Tools set automatically records markups as they are added to your PDF. To reuse a tool, click its icon and place the markup on your document. This feature is particularly handy for repetitive tasks, such as marking circuit paths or labeling outlets.

When the number of saved tools exceeds the display capacity, an arrow appears on the right. Clicking this arrow reveals all your recent tools. You can configure the maximum number of tools stored in Recent Tools by clicking the properties gear and adjusting the “Maximum Recents” setting.

If you need to clear your recent tools before closing Bluebeam Revu, click the properties gear and select “Clear Recents.”

Permanently Saving a Tool to be Reused

To ensure a tool remains available after Revu is closed, you have a couple of options:

– Drag the tool’s icon from Recent Tools into another tool set.

– Right-click the tool icon in Recent Tools and select “Add Item to My Tools,” which saves it to the My Tools tool set. Use the drag-and-drop method to save it to a different set if needed.

To save a markup on the document as a reusable tool, right-click the markup, go to “Add to Tool Chest,” and select the desired tool set.

Special Properties of the My Tools Tool Set

The My Tools tool set is a customizable collection of frequently used tools, offering easy access and special properties. Tools in this set are assigned numeric hot keys for quick access, shown in the upper right corner of the icon. Changing a tool’s position in the set automatically updates its hot key.

The My Tools set is a permanent feature in Revu, available in all profiles by default. While it can be hidden, it cannot be completely removed. Tools in this set can toggle between Properties Mode and Drawing Mode for versatile use.

Properties Mode vs. Drawing Mode

Tools in My Tools, Recent Tools, and custom tool sets can operate in two modes: Drawing Mode and Properties Mode.

– Properties Mode: Adds a new markup with the same appearance properties as the saved markup, retaining properties like color and border, but not exact dimensions or text.

– Drawing Mode: Adds an exact duplicate of the saved markup, perfect for repetitive tasks where precision is key.

Switching modes is easy—double-click the tool or use the Toggle Mode icon on the Tool Chest toolbar. This flexibility allows you to choose the best mode for your needs.

Pinning, Scaling Tool Sets

For quick access, you can pin a tool set to any toolbar. Click the properties gear next to the section name, go to “Pin,” and select the specific toolbar.

Tool sets can also scale automatically when placed in a calibrated drawing, thanks to Revu’s Dynamic Tool Set Scaler. This feature is particularly useful for electricians, as it ensures your markups, like conduit paths or switch locations, are accurately scaled.

Generating a Markups Legend

Creating a Markups Legend based on a tool set is a powerful feature, enabling you to keep track of all your tools and their uses. Refer to the Markups Legend section in Revu for detailed instructions.

The Tool Chest in Bluebeam Revu is a game-changer for electricians and other construction workers looking to enhance their productivity. By efficiently organizing, saving and scaling your tools, workers can focus more on the critical aspects of their job and less on repetitive tasks. Explore these features to make the most of the document markup experience, ensuring electrical plans are always clear, precise and professional.

New to Bluebeam? Give it a try!

DOWNLOAD
Guides