Learn to read a drawing set by reading one
A construction drawing reading trainer for apprentices, students and anyone new to plans: 16 sheets for one invented library, drawn the way a US set is drawn. Pan it, measure it at your chosen scale, click what is asked, and get graded, with ten lessons, guides and reference pages free to read.
Everything runs in your browser. No account, nothing to install, and nothing you do on the drawings is sent anywhere.
Click grid line D.
Drag to pan.
10 lessons, in order
Each lesson is taught on a named sheet, sends you into the viewer at the place it is talking about, and ends with a checkpoint drawn from the 207 questions in the bank. Every lesson assumes the one before it.
Who this is for
Anybody who has been handed a set and expected to get on with it. Apprentices and new tradespeople. Estimators, project engineers, superintendents and inspectors who read drawings every week and were never taught the conventions in any order. Students on architecture, engineering and construction management courses. Anybody preparing for a trade assessment with a drawing reading component.
The daily drill
10 questions, spread across every lesson that has questions in it, seeded by the date so everybody gets the same drill and a new one arrives at midnight UTC. Most of them put you on a drawing and ask you to click the thing, read the tag or measure the distance, and every answer comes back with the reasoning written out and the convention it rests on named.
Free forever, with no account and no limit on how many times you run it. Nothing you answer leaves your browser.
The set
| Sheet | Title | Scale | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| G-001 | Cover Sheet, Sheet Index, Project Data | As noted | Drawn |
| G-002 | Symbols, Abbreviations and General Notes | None | Drawn |
| C-101 | Site Plan | 1" = 20' | Drawn |
| A-101 | Level 1 Floor Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| A-102 | Level 2 Floor Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| A-121 | Level 1 Reflected Ceiling Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| A-201 | Exterior Elevations | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| A-301 | Building Sections | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| A-401 | Wall Sections and Details | As noted | Drawn |
| A-501 | Enlarged Plans and Interior Elevations | 1/4" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| A-601 | Door, Window and Room Finish Schedules | As noted | Drawn |
| S-101 | Foundation Plan | As noted | Drawn |
| S-201 | Level 2 Framing Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| M-101 | Level 1 Mechanical Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| P-101 | Level 1 Plumbing Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
| E-101 | Level 1 Power and Lighting Plan | 1/8" = 1'-0" | Drawn |
Guides and reference
10 long form guides on how a set is drawn, and a reference layer you can keep open beside real drawings: the scale table with a converter, a symbols legend drawn by the sheet renderer itself, the abbreviations list, sheet numbering, and line types and weights. All free, none of it gated.
Units, and what this is not
The set is imperial throughout: feet and inches written with a plain hyphen, ARCH D sheets at 24 by 36 inches, architect's scales for the building and an engineer's scale for the site. There is no metric set here yet.
The Millbrook Branch Library, its town, its owner, its architect and its engineer are invented for teaching. The drawings are a study set: they are not construction documents, nobody has reviewed or sealed them, and on a real job the controlling set, the specifications and your own judgment govern. Drafting conventions are facts and are described here in original prose. ReadTheSet is not affiliated with NCCER, AIA, or NIBS.
Frequently asked questions
What is ReadTheSet?
A place to learn construction drawing literacy by reading an actual set rather than by watching somebody read one. It ships sixteen original sheets for one invented building, in a viewer you can pan, zoom and measure, with ten written lessons, long form guides, a free reference layer, and a question bank that grades you on the drawing itself.
Who is it for?
Apprentices and new tradespeople who have been handed a set and told to get on with it. Estimators, project engineers, superintendents and inspectors who read drawings but were never taught the conventions in order. Architecture, engineering and construction management students. Anybody preparing for a trade assessment that includes blueprint reading, and anybody who has ever nodded at a callout they could not resolve.
What is on the drawings?
One original set for a fictional two storey branch library of about 6,400 square feet: sixteen sheets covering the cover and legend, the site, floor plans, a reflected ceiling plan, elevations, sections, wall sections and details, enlarged plans, schedules, and the structural, mechanical, plumbing and electrical sheets. Nothing is traced or imported, every tag resolves to a real row in the project data, and every callout resolves to a real drawing in the set.
How do the drills work?
A question comes in one of four shapes. Click the thing on the drawing that is being described. Choose between statements about a convention. Type a number you have read or measured. Name the sheet a question belongs on. Each one opens the viewer at the part of the sheet it is about, and the feedback says why the answer is what it is rather than only whether you were right.
Why does the measure tool ask me to choose a scale?
Because choosing the scale is the skill. The tool knows how far apart your two clicks are on the paper, and multiplying that by a scale is what turns paper into feet. If you pick the wrong scale you get a wrong answer, in exactly the way you would with the wrong edge of an architect's rule, and the feedback tells you by how much.
What is free and what is not?
The reading surface is free and stays free: all sixteen sheets in the viewer with the measure tool and the layer tray, the ten lessons, every guide, every reference page and the scale calculator. Premium, the optional paid plan, adds depth of practice on top of that: unlimited drills on lessons 4 to 10 and on any sheet, the timed exam, a progress record and a printable completion record. Nothing that helps you read a drawing gets taken away to make room for it.
Do I need an account, and where does my progress go?
There is no account and no sign in. Anything the site remembers is written to your browser's own local storage and stays on the device you are using. Nothing you click, measure or answer is sent anywhere, because there is no server side to this site at all: it is a set of static files.
Do I need to know any software?
No. The drawings are rendered in the page as vector graphics, so they pan, zoom and stay sharp on a phone. There is nothing to install and nothing to open in a CAD program. If you can use a browser you can use the set.
Are the drawings metric?
Not in this version. The set is imperial throughout: feet and inches, ARCH D sheets at 24 by 36 inches, architect's scales for the building and an engineer's scale for the site. A metric set with 1:50 and 1:100 scales is a possible later addition and is not here yet.
Is this an NCCER, AIA or NIBS product?
No. ReadTheSet is not affiliated with NCCER, AIA, or NIBS. Drafting conventions such as discipline designators and sheet type numbers are facts and are described here in original prose, but no text, table, figure or question from any standard, curriculum or commercial course is reproduced. It is a study aid, not a qualification, and the controlling set on a real job always governs.