Urban Design Limited today released Archipad worldwide. Archipad is a scale aware sketching application for architects, interior and product designers.
Use Archipad as you would use a tracing pad. Sketch, overlay it, and sketch further to develop your ideas. Archipad mimics how architects and designers have been designing using traditional tools but now the same creativity can be achieved on your iPad. Being on an iPad, it can now go much further. As well as everything being to scale, you can zoom in and out to develop specific areas, rotate layers or the whole drawing to tryout different options or share your design with others or export them to a CAD application to prepare working drawing.
Archipad is more akin to a painting app than a drawing program. This means that shapes and freehand lines, can be added, partially erased and more shapes and lines added, building up the drawing, similar to a traditional sketching methods. Urban Design Limited believes this to be also more appropriate to the iPad as one interacts with it in a much quicker and direct way than a standard computer that uses a mouse. Also as one uses a finger to draw on the iPad, it would be difficult to recreate the levels of accuracy that is need in a CAD program.
The target market of Archipad is not only the professional architects and designers but as it is simple enough to use, it can include the amateur space planner, armed with an estate agent’s plans. Anybody wanting to buy or rent a property wants to explore how they can either move walls around or lay out furniture. With Archipad it would be simple to import the plan, set the scale, erase some walls, draw some new ones and place some furniture. These initial ideas then can be communicated more clearly with others.
The price structure of Archipad also reflects its diverse potential use. Its free to download and use for a small project. A student or a house buyer can purchase a subscription for a short interval and longer for a professional. Adopting the subscription model guarantees that the latest features are added to the app as soon as they become available, and the app can be activated and reactivated whenever it is needed.
List of features:
• Measuring lines to either set scale or measure distances on a drawing
• Multiple layers
• Shape and freehand drawing tools
• Duplicate a shape multiple time
• Zoom in and out without losing drawing quality
• Rotate or move a layer or the whole drawing
• Duplicate or flip layers
• Create layers from other drawings to generate different views of a project
• Scaled grids including isometric and axonometric grids
• Guide lines that can be subdivided equally or into specific distances
• Symbols; use predefined set of symbols or create your own from the content of a layer and share it between your projects
• Export and generate blueprints up to A3 size, at any scale, without losing drawing quality
With the advent of touch orientated interface in iPad, a whole new approach to interacting with technology has been created. Archipad, which has been designed by a practicing architect, brings the fun of the creative process to the iPad, and by borrowing features from CAD programs it becomes an intuitive app for all designers.
Archipad 1.1 is Free and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store here.
Tracing over a previous sketch? Sounds like it can be used to create animation for cartoons. I wonder if they realise.
Wait a darn minute! Many of these things sound like Real WORK. And I have been told you can’t do Real WORK on an iPad!
It’s not free. It is a limited trial mode. Otherwise you need to subscribe for $9.99 per year or $2.99 per month.
No thanks.
$9.99 per year=$83 per month, and read it again $2.99 for 3 months, not one = $1 per mont. Can’t afford it?
Ok, corrections:
$9.99 per year ($0.83 per month)
-or-
$2.99 for 3 months
It’s not an affordability problem.
Look. There are 4 types of app approaches.
1. Premium-priced, outright purchase of the app, as-is, feature complete, fully-enabled, with minor updates in the future, until the next major paid-upgrade is released. (I realize this is the most old-fashioned).
2. Moderately priced app, feature complete but with additional in-app purchases to augment and enhance the baseline features. Minor updates in the future, until the next major paid-upgrade is released.
3. Free app, largely feature complete but with additional in-app purchases to augment and enhance the baseline features. Minor updates in the future, until the next major free upgrade is released.
4. Subscription based app. *technically* feature complete but with arbitrary set limits (time, layers, pages etc.), and maybe additional in-app purchases to augment and enhance the baseline features. Minor updates in the future, until the next major upgrade is released which you will be auto-billed for when it comes out.
I said “no thanks” not due to the price but for the fact that I don’t yet know what I am subscribing to. If it were an outright purchase of $9.99, I certainly expect it to work for more than a year. I realize apps get stale and don’t always work with major iOS upgrades years later, but still, I should get several years worth of use for a paid app (based on past experience).
No, when next year comes around, what if the app isn’t really that different? Then I’m in a $9.99 per year cycle for much the same app (leave aside the fact I can cancel the subscription easily). BUT if it IS substantially different each year, I may not like the changes they make but will have no way to know without updating the old one I like.
That’s all. Just a personal preference for app styles 1, 2 and 3, not so much 4. Your mileage may vary. Take care and enjoy the internet.
Subscriptions $UCK and always will.
Boo.
What’s wrong with you guys? It’s free to play with. And if you come up against a restriction, it’s less than a cup of coffee, to unrestrict it for a quarter. Or $10 a year!!!! For a great tool. Coders slogged there guts out for months on this, and you begrudge them a few cups of coffee? This sort of functionality used to cost $100s dollars!!!
$ubscriptions suck. I would gladly pay for the app up front, with a trial. I would in app purchase it for a one time fee.
Subscriptions SUCK SUCK SUCK.
I do not want to keep paying for software over and over again.
If it is costly, offer a trial and one time fee!!!
GET REAL Mary Tyler Mo Money!