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Material Take-Off · Claude plugin · Public beta

Carbon-aware take-offs,
without the upload

An AI-assisted, carbon-aware Material Take-Off, wrapped as a Claude plugin. Point it at your local IFC models — it matches every material against ÖKOBAUDAT and hands you a ready-to-use Excel take-off. No upload. Instant results.

Install the plugin Become a pilot customer

Runs locally · IFC in, Excel out · Embodied carbon from ÖKOBAUDAT

Public beta Free to use while in beta. We would love your feedback — and we are looking for pilot customers.

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A different kind of take-off

Your models never leave your machine

Traditional take-off tools ask you to export, upload and wait. Ours doesn't. The plugin reads your IFC files straight from disk, runs the matching locally, and writes the result back as an Excel workbook — all on your own computer.

No portal, no queue, no project geometry leaving your control. Just open Claude, point it at a model, and get a costed, carbon-aware take-off in seconds.

Claude · Material Take-Off

Take off the materials from /models/tower-rev7.ifc and add embodied carbon.

Read 2,341 elements. Matched 38 materials to ÖKOBAUDAT.
tower-rev7-takeoff.xlsx written — 11,951 t CO₂e total. ✓

Illustrative — your files stay on your device.

How it works

From IFC to costed carbon in four steps

  1. 01

    Point it at your IFC

    Keep your models where they are. The plugin reads IFC directly from your local filesystem — one file or a whole federated set.

  2. 02

    AI matches every material

    Materials and layers are matched to the right ÖKOBAUDAT entries automatically — even when the naming in your model is messy or inconsistent.

  3. 03

    Carbon-aware quantities

    Quantities are paired with embodied-carbon factors (GWP) from ÖKOBAUDAT, so every line of your take-off carries its climate impact.

  4. 04

    Get an Excel take-off

    A clean .xlsx lands in seconds — materials, quantities and carbon — ready for LCA, tendering or cost estimation.

Install

Add the plugin to Claude Code

Material Take-Off installs as a Claude Code plugin from our marketplace. Two commands to add it, one to run your first take-off.

Before you start

  • · Claude Code installed and signed in.
  • · Supported platforms: macOS (Apple silicon & Intel) and Windows x64.
  • · Everything else installs itself — the plugin pulls its binary on first run.
  1. 01

    Add the marketplace

    In Claude Code, run:

    /plugin marketplace add blackmirror-media/nio-material-take-off-plugin
  2. 02

    Install Material Take-Off

    /plugin install material-takeoff@nio
  3. 03

    Run your first take-off

    Point it at any IFC model on your disk:

    /material-takeoff path/to/model.ifc

    An optional second argument sets the output .xlsx path.

  4. 04

    Not sure a model is ready? Check it first

    /ifc-check path/to/model.ifc

    Validates schema, materials and quantities before you run a full take-off.

On first run the plugin registers your email address so we can understand beta usage. Your IFC files are read and processed locally and are never uploaded to us. See our Privacy Policy for exactly what is sent.

Also for Claude Cowork

Using Claude Cowork?

Material Take-Off runs in Claude Cowork too. Add it from the Plugins UI in one of two ways, then let Cowork keep it up to date.

A

From a URL

In the Plugins UI, choose Add plugin and paste:

https://github.com/blackmirror-media/nio-material-take-off-plugin
B

From a file

Download material-takeoff.plugin from the latest release and drop it onto the Cowork window.

Tip: open the plugin's ··· menu and turn on Sync automatically so Cowork tracks new commits on the default branch — when an update is available, click Update on the plugin's settings card. On first run the plugin downloads a platform-specific binary (~80 MB) from GitHub Releases (macOS Apple silicon & Intel, Windows x64).

Why it's different

Built for speed, privacy and carbon

No upload, ever

Your IFC models stay on your device. Geometry is never sent to a server — ideal for confidential or competition-stage projects.

Instant results

No batch jobs, no waiting room. Ask for a take-off and the workbook is ready in seconds.

Carbon-aware

Embodied carbon sits alongside every quantity, turning a quantity take-off into a head start on your Life-Cycle Assessment.

ÖKOBAUDAT-matched

AI matching maps your materials to the German ÖKOBAUDAT database — auditable, standard-aligned and ready for certification.

Excel, ready to use

Output is a structured spreadsheet you can drop straight into your existing estimating, LCA or reporting workflow.

Inside Claude

It's a Claude plugin, so you work in plain language — refine, filter and re-run your take-off just by asking.

Public beta · pilot programme

Help shape Material Take-Off

Material Take-Off is in public beta. It's free to use while we refine it, and your feedback directly shapes what we build next. Found a material that didn't match well, or a model that wouldn't parse? Tell us.

We are also looking for a small group of pilot customers — architecture, engineering and contracting teams who want carbon-aware take-offs in their day-to-day workflow and early access to new features. Pilots get direct access to our team and a say in the roadmap.

Prefer email?

contact@blackmirror.at

Send feedback, bug reports or a note that you'd like to join the pilot — we read every message.

Feedback & pilot sign-up

Tell us who you are and how you'd use Material Take-Off. We'll be in touch.

Aligned with leading certification frameworks

DGNB Baubook

Try it on your next model

Install the plugin and build a carbon-aware Material Take-Off from your own IFC files — locally, in seconds. It's free while we're in beta.

Install the plugin Become a pilot customer