What this does
When you've spent time setting up ignored colours and detection templates on one drawing, you can import that setup onto another — saving repeating the same Stage 1 work file by file.
Two things travel together:
- Ignored colour masks — the colour groups you've added to the Ignore Colours list on the source file. They get applied to the destination file's zone configuration.
- Detection templates — the symbol images captured by detection groups on the source file. They're used to run symbol detection on the destination, so you start Stage 2 with markers already in place.
Reach for this when you have a set of similar drawings in the same project — multiple floors of the same building, multiple wings of the same site, multiple revisions of the same layout.
Opening the import dialog
The trigger is in the toolbar's Actions menu:
- 1
Open the drawing you want to import into.
- 2
Click Actions in the toolbar.
- 3
Choose Import from Files .
The button is disabled unless you have multiple files selected — Import from Files needs source files to pick masks and templates from, and it draws those from the other selected files in the current submit batch.
The Import from Files dialog
The dialog reads:
Select colour ignore masks from other files to apply, then detect symbols captured on other currently selected files.
Two main sections:
Ignore Colours masks
A list of every source file with their ignored-colour masks shown as thumbnails. Each thumbnail has a checkbox — tick the ones you want to import.
Controls:
- Select all / Deselect all — toggle every mask in the section.
- Zoom in / out — change the thumbnail grid size between 2 and 6 columns wide.
Template Images
A list of every source file with their detection group templates as thumbnails. Each group's colour swatch and label are visible alongside the thumbnail. Checkboxes work the same as the masks section.
Same Select all / Deselect all and zoom controls.
Other controls
- A Remove Background toggle at the top — turn this on to also apply Remove Background processing to the destination file as part of the import.
- A Cancel button to abandon.
- A Confirm button to apply. Confirm is disabled until the source data has loaded.
How to import
- 1
Open the Import from Files dialog (see above).
- 2
In the Ignore Colours section, tick the colour masks you want applied to the destination drawing.
- 3
In the Template Images section, tick the detection groups whose templates you want re-run on the destination drawing.
- 4
Optionally turn on Remove Background.
- 5
Click Confirm.
- 6
ZeroCount applies the masks immediately and runs detection using the imported templates. New markers appear in the destination drawing's sidebar.
What you get
After confirming:
- The destination drawing's Ignore Colours list gains the imported colour masks.
- New Auto Count Symbol marker groups appear with markers placed wherever the imported templates matched on the destination drawing.
- The destination drawing advances to Stage 2 if it wasn't already there — same as a normal Stage 1 Submit.
Review the results as usual in Stage 2. The matcher uses templates from a different drawing, so accuracy depends on how similar the two drawings are — same symbol set at the same scale will usually look great; very different drawings less so.
When import is worth it
Worth it:
- Multiple floors of the same building. Setup once on Floor 1, import to Floors 2, 3, 4, 5.
- Multi-discipline drawings sharing a legend. If lighting and small power both use the same legend page, set up once and import.
- Revisions. Import the previous revision's setup to the new revision and only review the differences.
Not worth it:
- One-off drawings.
- Drawings at very different scales — templates may not match.
- Drawings that share the project but have totally different symbol vocabularies.