MechCircle

Read a drawing

Upload a drawing of a turned or machined part and get the bar size, part length, material and an estimated weight, read from what is printed on it.

  1. 1Before you start

  2. 2Your email address

  3. 3The code from the email

  4. 4Your drawing

    You choose it once your address is confirmed, and the read starts straight away.

Your drawing goes here

Tick the box and confirm your email address above first. Then drag a drawing here, or choose one.

Part details

Part name
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Drawing number
—
Revision
—
Customer
—
Material (as printed)
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Bar size
—
Part length
—

Weight

Gross and net weight appear here once the drawing is read.

Nothing you type here is sent anywhere — the costing is worked out in your browser, and this tab keeps it until you close it.

Cost per piece, before your margin

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Needs: the bar size; the part length; a material grade; a material price per kg; 1. CNC lathe / turning centre: needs a cycle time; 1. CNC lathe / turning centre: needs a machine rate.

Not included, because blank:

scrap credit (no scrap price), raw material rejection %, process rejection %, overhead on raw material %, overhead on conversion %, packing %.

Material

Standard allowances — your own would differ.

Operations

Your machine rate and the cycle time per piece. Cycle time is never filled in for you — only you know it.

Adjustments

Your own percentages. Each one left blank is named under the cost above.

What it reads from a drawing

Every figure comes from a dimension printed on the drawing. Nothing is measured off the picture, nothing is added up from other dimensions, and on an inch drawing the AI does not do the conversion: it copies the figure exactly as printed, and our server converts it to millimetres.

Part name, drawing number, revision
As printed in the title block. The page also sends an enlarged picture of the drawing's bottom-right corner, where the title block usually sits, so small print there is read properly.
Customer
The filled-in Customer field, or else the company name or logo printed in the title block.
Material
As printed, for example EN8, SAE 1018 or SS 304. When the drawing allows more than one material, all of them are given, the main one first, joined by OR. When the material box only points to a note (REF NOTE-1, SEE NOTE 2), the material is taken from that note. The page then suggests the matching standard grade for the weight, and you can pick another.
Units
Millimetres or inches, from what the drawing says: ALL DIMENSIONS IN INCHES, an inch units box, or sizes marked with ". A drawing that says neither is read as millimetres.
Bar shape and bar size
Round, hexagon or square. For a round part, the largest printed outside diameter. For a hex or square part, the printed across-flats size, never across the corners. On an inch drawing the size is converted to millimetres from the figure exactly as printed (1.00, .750, 11/16 or 1-3/8), and the printed figure is shown under the result so you can check it.
Part length
The largest dimension printed along the part's axis. The axis can be horizontal or vertical on the sheet. On an inch drawing it is converted the same way, with the printed figure shown under it.
Net weight (estimated)
Worked out from the printed outside diameters and their lengths, minus the printed bores. Chamfers, radii and flats are not deducted, so it reads slightly heavy.
Gross weight per piece
The bar each piece really uses, at standard allowances you can change: see the worked example below.

Files that work

  • A PDF of the drawing, one page.
  • A photo or scan as JPG, PNG or WebP. Large photos are made smaller in your browser before they are sent.
  • Up to 3 MB per file.
  • A clear, straight-on drawing reads best. A blurred or angled photo of a print can lose small figures.

What the free read does not do

  • Tolerances. The free read reports 47.20 for 47.20 ±0.20 and keeps nothing of the tolerance. Reading every dimension with its tolerance is a paid service.
  • GD&T and surface finish symbols. Notes are not read either, with one exception: when the material box only points to a note, that note is read for the material.
  • Threads, holes, grooves and chamfers as a list of features. Only what it needs for the bar and the weight.
  • More than one page. A file with two or more pages is refused before anything is sent.
  • Measuring off the picture. Every figure comes from a printed dimension. If the bar size or the length is not printed, the result says so instead of guessing.
  • Adding dimensions together to make a length that is not printed.
  • Your prices. The read's weights use standard densities and standard allowances; the Costing tab beside it uses only the prices and rates you type.

Beyond the free read

The free read gives the bar, the length, the material and the weight. The tabs beside your drawing show what else can be done from the same drawing. Costing works right here (below). The others do not run on this page — two are paid services and three are made inside MechCircle — and nothing extra is sent or charged when you open a tab.

Dimensions and tolerancesPaid service
Every dimension printed on the drawing with its tolerance, numbered against the page so each one can be checked — the list an inspector works from.
Quality planIn MechCircle
One row per dimension on the drawing, with the instrument, how often it is checked and the sample size, taken from the part's inspection formats. A dimension no format checks is marked. Downloads as a PDF or an Excel sheet.
In-process inspection formatIn MechCircle
Made from the part's dimension list: each dimension with its tolerance and instrument, and a box for every hour of the shift. Prints as a PDF or downloads as an Excel sheet.
Final inspection formatIn MechCircle
Made from the part's dimension list: each dimension numbered as the drawing numbers it, its limits worked out from the printed tolerance (fits such as h9 and H7 included), and five reading columns. Prints as a PDF or downloads as an Excel sheet.
Production processPaid service
The operations for the part kept in order, machine by machine. You enter them yourself; they are not read from the drawing.

To use a paid service, contact us.

The inspection formats and the quality plan:

Included with every MechCircle account. Sign up free

Costing the part

The Costing tab beside your drawing works out a cost per piece from the bar the reader found and your own figures: your material price per kg, your machine rates and cycle times, and any per-piece costs such as plating or heat treatment. It starts from the next standard bar size above the printed diameter, because bar is bought in standard sizes; change it if you buy a different size.

The figure is a cost before your margin. Your own percentages — scrap recovery, rejection, overheads and packing — start blank, and every one left blank is named under the figure, so a cost that leaves something out says so. Add your margin before you quote.

Nothing you type is sent anywhere: the costing is worked out in your browser and kept in this tab until you close it. It costs nothing and does not use your free read — if you already know the bar and the length, you can cost a part without reading a drawing.

A worked example

An illustrative part, not a customer drawing: a stepped pin in EN8 with a Ø22 head 12 mm long, a Ø16 shank 28 mm long (40 mm overall) and an Ø8 bore right through. These are the figures the reader works out from those printed sizes.

Bar
Round, Ø22 mm (the largest printed outside diameter)
Part length
40 mm
Net weight (estimated)
0.0642 kg
Gross weight per piece
0.1421 kg
  1. Net: the outside steps (Ø22 × 12 and Ø16 × 28) less the Ø8 × 40 bore come to 8,181 mm³. At 7.85 g/cm³ that is 0.0642 kg.
  2. Cut per piece: 40 mm part + 2 mm parting + 1 mm facing = 43 mm.
  3. Pieces per bar: a 3,000 mm bar, keeping 250 mm back for the end piece, gives 63 whole pieces. The real end piece left over is 291 mm.
  4. Gross: you pay for the whole bar, so each piece carries 3,000 ÷ 63 = 47.62 mm of Ø22 bar: 0.1421 kg.

Standard allowances — your own would differ. On the result you can change the parting, facing, end piece and bar length, and the gross weight follows.

How many reads

Two free reads per email address each month, and a limited number of free reads each day across everyone. When they are used up the page says so and when to come back.

Your drawing and your address

The drawing is sent to Anthropic to be read, and we keep no copy of it and no email address. Exactly what is sent, who keeps what and for how long — including our email provider and Cloudflare — is set out in the free drawing reader section of AI and Your Data. If a customer's contract forbids their drawing leaving your premises, do not upload it.

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