Find paving with fal.ai

Find paving draws a takeoff for you. With fal.ai, its Find everything in view option outlines all the asphalt and concrete on the aerial at once, cuts the planted islands and buildings out of the lot, and counts the striped stalls. Everything it finds lands on the map as ordinary shapes, marked as their takeoff items, for you to check and fix before pricing.

It runs Meta’s Segment Anything model (SAM 3) through fal.ai, on your own fal.ai account. fal.ai bills you directly: about half a cent for each thing Find paving looks for, so asphalt, concrete and stalls together cost about 1.5¢ a search, and $5 of credit covers hundreds of lots. Crewtavo doesn’t charge for it.

Tip

Find paving itself is free and needs no fal.ai account: put a box round a lot, press Outline, and it’s outlined right in your browser. See Bid a paving job from the aerial.

Install it

It takes about two minutes, and an owner or admin does it once for the business.

1. In Crewtavo, open Apps, choose fal.ai (under AI) and click Install.
2. Click Get a key from fal.ai. Sign in with Google or GitHub, or make an account.
3. Click Create Key, name it Crewtavo, keep the API scope, and copy the key. fal.ai only shows it once.
4. Add a few dollars of credit under Billing on fal.ai.
5. Back in Crewtavo, paste the key and click Save. Crewtavo checks it with fal.ai before saving, at no cost, and says so if it’s wrong.

The key is stored encrypted and never shown again. To use a different key, paste a new one on the same page.

Use it

1. Open a takeoff on the map (from Paving, or Measure) and zoom until the lot fills the map.
2. Under Takeoff items, below Find paving, click Find everything in view with fal.ai.
3. Choose what to find: Asphalt, Concrete and Stalls, then click Find. It takes about 10 to 30 seconds.
4. Check every shape against the imagery. Drag corners that are off, delete anything that isn’t pavement, and draw what it missed.

Tip

Find paving looks at what’s on the map at that moment, so zoom in on the lot first. Run it again after moving the map to do another part of a big site.

Stall counting needs imagery sharp enough to see the striping, like the free state imagery many states publish (see Map imagery). On the 2 ft US aerial, draw Stall rows instead. It counts up to 32 stalls a search.

What fal.ai sees

When someone clicks Find, Crewtavo sends fal.ai a picture of the aerial in view, and nothing else: no client names, addresses, prices or drawings. If the map is showing Google satellite, the picture comes from the free imagery for that spot instead, since Google’s terms don’t allow sending it on.

If something goes wrong

• “Find paving needs fal.ai.” fal.ai isn’t installed. An owner or admin installs it in Apps.
• “fal.ai didn’t accept that key.” Copy the whole key from fal.ai (it has a colon in the middle) and paste it again, or create a new one.
• “Your fal.ai account is out of credit.” Add credit under Billing on fal.ai, then try again.
• “Nothing found here.” Zoom in so the lot fills the map, check the map is on aerial imagery (not the street map or terrain), or draw it with the takeoff items.

Uninstall it

Open Apps → fal.ai and click Uninstall. Find paving stops working and the key is removed from Crewtavo. Shapes it already found stay on your drawings. To stop the key working anywhere, delete it on fal.ai too.