Smart Overlay and Smart Review FAQs

Smart Overlay lets you compare two versions of PDF drawing sets and processes them to show what's changed between revisions. The comparison results display in Bluebeam on web, where you can review changes organized by discipline and sheet. Smart Overlay allows you to see which areas of the documents changed and may need attention.

Smart Review performs advanced AI analysis that detects incomplete designs, scope gaps, and discrepancies within a drawing set. Document health checks provide actionable insights for accurate bidding and improved project efficiency.

Smart Overlay and Smart Review appear under the Batch menu in Revu. When you select either of these features, you'll see a dialog box that lets you upload one or more PDF files for processing. The files are uploaded to our cloud-based environment for processing, and they're analyzed by a proprietary AI engine. During processing, Revu opens Bluebeam on web, where the results of the analysis are made available for review and export.

See this page for information about the Bluebeam guiding principles regarding AI and how Bluebeam uses AI. For additional information, see the Bluebeam Terms of Use.

Results generally become available within a few minutes of initiating Smart Overlay or Smart Review. Processing time depends on the size of the file(s) and the current bandwidth of the system.

When you upload a PDF to Smart Overlay or Smart Review, Revu opens Bluebeam on web to the Smart Results tab. The Analysis Status column for your processed PDF(s) appear as "In Progress" during processing and "Completed" when processing is complete. In addition, you should receive a confirmation email.

Yes. The features include OCR capabilities and can read rasterized content. However, analyzing rasterized content will deliver less accurate results.

Yes. Please see Prepare your documents for Smart Overlay and Smart Review.

Not at this time. Smart Overlay returns a rasterized, flattened PDF.

The Smart Overlay process doesn't currently include an auto-alignment feature or a manual alignment feature, so these differences appear as changes.

During processing, the system reads the title blocks to match sheets together. If a sheet exists in one version but not the other, the system indicates that difference and skips the percentage score for that sheet. For more information see Prepare your documents for Smart Overlay and Smart Review.

No. Currently, Smart Overlay is designed to specifically match versions of the same discipline by using the title block sheet numbers. As a result, it can't match different disciplines, such as E1.01 and M1.01.

The following checks help teams catch problems early and avoid financial risks, delays, and disputes:

• Document health checks

  • Sheet is blank

  • Sheet missing from set

  • Sheet missing from index

  • Sheet number not unique

  • Referenced sheet is missing

• Gridline coordination

  • Tag not consistent

    This check identifies inconsistent distances between structural and architectural gridlines across sheets in the drawing set.

• Architectural

  • Door tag not in schedule

  • Door tag not in plans

  • Door tag not unique in schedule

  • Missing door schedule

• Plumbing

  • Plumbing Tags Not in Plan

  Considerations for this check

  • Matching is exact and case-sensitive. A schedule tag and its plan label must match exactly; any differences in capitalization or spacing can result in a tag being incorrectly identified as missing.

  • This check runs in only one direction. It flags schedule tags that are missing from the plans. It doesn't identify plan tags missing from the schedule.

  • Schedules must have clear tables with ruled borders for reliable detection. A schedule without ruled borders might not be detected as a table, and its tags will not be checked.

  • Small schedules with few tags are less accurate. A schedule with a small number of tags gives the check very little to cross-check against, so a misread or wrong column is more likely to slip through and produce false alerts.

  • Tags that are too short (e.g. 1–2 characters) could produce inaccurate results.

  • Use single-word short tag codes. The check doesn't recognize multi-word tag codes, for example "TYPE A FIXTURE."

  • This check processes multi-page schedules one page at a time, so ensure that headers repeat across pages.

  • Use a high-quality scan. Low-quality scans can hide issues and create false alerts.

  • This check only compares top-view plan drawings. It doesn't compare sections, elevations, or details.

Smart Review currently works best for floor plans. You'll get the most accurate results with the following types of files:

• Floor plans showing walls, doors, and windows
• Documents using standard architectural conventions
• Drawings that include gridlines, schedules, and sheet indexes

Civil drawings, site plans, and documents other than floor plans may produce less consistent results.

No. Currently, Smart Review supports only imperial measurements.