Introducing Length Hinting: AI That Completes Irrigation Lines for You
If you've ever estimated an irrigation plan, you know how quickly the clicks add up. Tracing even a single line can take hundreds of points, and when you're doing that across an entire drawing, it's a major drain on your time and attention.
Today, we're excited to launch Length Hinting, a new AI-powered feature that dramatically speeds up line tracing by completing irrigation lines from just a couple of points.
Watch this video to see it in action:
Why We Built Length Hinting
Estimators need accuracy, but they also need speed. Traditionally, tracing irrigation lines means painstakingly following every turn, curve, and connection manually. It's slow, repetitive, and easy to fall behind.
The idea behind Length Hinting is simple: what if Bobyard's AI model could understand the estimator's intent and complete the rest of the line for them?
With Length Hinting, you mark the beginning of a line (two points or more) and the model instantly completes the rest for you. No waiting, no lag, no interruption to your workflow.
How Length Hinting Works
Length Hinting understands what you're trying to trace. When you drop your first points, the model:
Understands your intent: It picks up the line you meant to trace, following its path through curves, intersections, and branches just as you would.
Completes the entire run instantly: It follows that same line all the way until a meaningful shift occurs (like transitioning from a lateral to a main), keeping the output clean, accurate, and easy to interpret.
Adapts to any line style: Irrigation drawings vary widely. Length Hinting is built to handle thick, thin, dashed, sparse, colorful, or unconventional lines, because you never know which ones matter most in a plan.
Designed to Fit Your Workflow
Length Hinting takes a task that normally requires hundreds of clicks and condenses it into two. It's built to make your work faster, your counts more consistent, and your whole workflow smoother, without forcing you to change the way you work. You still decide where to start and what matters. The model just handles the repetitive tracing so you can spend more time on decisions that require expertise.
Two principles drove the feature's development:
Speed: You never have to wait. Length Hinting keeps up with even the fastest workflows.
Versatility: Every drawing is different. Length Hinting is flexible enough to handle all of them.
What's Next
This first release is powerful, and we're already working on:
Higher accuracy, especially in complex or messy drawings
Smarter understanding of pipe sizes, including better assistance in assigning them
We're excited to see how Length Hinting elevates your estimating workflow. Let us know what you think as you put it to work!