From France, it's iPocketDraw, now with DXF editing

It's not just the Big Boys who are CAD viewings and editors for portable Android and iOS devices. Eric Pousse has been writing CAD programs for handheld devices for years now, and just last week he emailed me that a new version of iPocket Draw for iOS devices is available at Apple's AppStore.

"It is not only a viewer," he reminds us. Due to the memory limitations of the iOS operating system and Apple hardware, many CAD products are only file viewers. "iPocket Draw is a full 2D CAD app for iPhone and iPad."

DXF Support and Limitations 

"New with version 1.90, iPocket Draw reads DXF files -- and edits them, of course," he adds. The size of DXF files that can be opened, however, is limited to about 20MB, and the software does not handle some complex objects, like splines and hatches. Because iPocket Draw works with a specified scale factor, you need to specify the scale and units upon opening the DXF file.

Speed Differences Between iOS Hardware

He ran some benchmarks, and came up with large differences between different models of iPhone and iPad.  In general, iPad 2 is twice as fast as iPhone 4.

• 8.6MB file with 103 layers and 44,494 objects 
  iPad 1: 33 secs -- iPhone 4: 40 secs --  iPad 2: 20 secs 
  
  
• 15.7MB file with 54 layers and 32,107 objects 
  iPad 1: 35 secs --  iPhone 4: 44 secs --  iPad 2: 21 secs 
  
  
• 20.3MB file with 32 layers and 79,533 objects 
  iPad 1: 53 secs -- iPhone 4: 66 secs -- iPad 2: 35 secs 

He found that on the iPad 1 and 2, the 20.53MB opened only after he closed all other applications and restart the iPads.

adx-online.com/prog/ipocketdraw/ipocketdraw.html

 

Comments

[DF]

""It is not only a viewer," he reminds us. Due to the memory limitations of the iOS operating system and Apple hardware, many CAD products are only file viewers. "iPocket Draw is a full 2D CAD app for iPhone and iPad.""

Is this middle bit just your opinion, or a quote of what Mr. Pousse actually said...?

More fandroidism, Ralph?

[Ralph Grabowski]

The sentence has quotations marks around it, and so this means it is a quote from the developer, clearly.

[DF]

I'll try again. The middle bit:

/Due to the memory limitations of the iOS operating system and Apple hardware, many CAD products are only file viewers./

No quotation marks there.

[Ralph Grabowski]

The memory limits of the iPhone and iPad are well known in the industry, despite being kept secret by Apple. These iOS devices tend to have no ore than 512MB RAM to store running programs and their data, while Android devices have 1GB available.

When a program like iPocketDraw has just room for 20MB of DXF data on an iOS device, it would have 532MB available on an Android. The arithmetic is simple: 20MB + 512MB = 532MB.

I am happy to explain other limitations of iOS devices, as well.

[DF]

So, that wasn't something Mr.Pousse said, then.

OK, riddle me this on your own opinion of iOS devices; if the i-device hardware "limitations" are such, where, then, are the non-viewer CAD products that must therefore be available for Android?

[Ralph Grabowski]

>where, then, are the non-viewer CAD products that must therefore be >available for Android?

Dunno. Ask the CAD vendors why they are supporting a dying platform.

[Kevin E.]

The extra 512 of ram is needed for Android to be able to operate the OS ;-)

[Eric Pousse]

Bonjour,

DWG viewer are not available on Android because Opendesign library is not available for this OS (but comes).

iPocket Draw is only available on iOS because :
- I am a Mac fan (yes nobody is perfect, Ralph);
- iPhone was the first;
- I don't have the resources to support more OS;
- developement tools are better for iOS;
- iOS is more safe for users and developers;
- in long terme vision, I hope that iOS and Mac OSX will merge, and that iOS apps will run on Mac OSX;

Don't forget that we talk about phones and tablets, so there is not only memory limitations but also speed.
So having more memory to open bigger files but without enough speed is not a good solution.
I can, probably, do some optimizations in iPocket Draw to increase both size of files readed and speed.
But that will be better with the iPhone 5 and 6...

[DF]

Dunno. Ask the CAD vendors why they are supporting a dying platform.

This is fairly unique thinking, to put it mildly. iOS, Mac OS and Android are thriving; the platform that's in trouble is Windows.

I ask you again; if Android (hardware) is supposedly so good for CAD developers, then why isn't there a rush to put out proper CAD packages there? Where are they? Instead, we have at best the same CAD packages as for iOS, with no extra editing features. Something's wrong here, and it isn't i-devices.

I'll note that it also wasn't so long ago that you were predicting doom for Autodesk in developing for the Mac. I see today that they're now going to port Inventor to the Mac, due to the success they've had so far with the platform:

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/27/macworld-2012-autodesk-inventor-fusion-for-mac-coming/

I'll also mention that your Flash on mobile predictions didn't turn out well, either.

[Kevin E.]

Major point of clarification. Autodesk is NOT porting Inventor to the Mac. They are porting Inventor FUSION to the Mac. And it is only a technical preview. One I am very excited to try.

Yeah, Windows is in huge trouble. They have only sold over 750 million copies of Windows 7. I hope they figure out how to squeek by.

[Ralph Grabowski]

Yah, I know. I was pointing out how badly the Wall Street Journal understands CAD.

[DF]

@ Kevin E.

Thanks for the clarification. I haven't had to use AutoCAD since my engineering college days.

"Yeah, Windows is in huge trouble. They have only sold over 750 million copies of Windows 7. I hope they figure out how to squeek by."

I have four of those licences. Two were free through college (CompSci course), two were cut-price advance sales through Amazon.

It is not a great mystery that PC and tablet sales charts are progressing in opposite directions, and in Europe at least Apple is taking an increasing share of both:

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/02/10/ipad_sales_context/

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/01/31/canalys_q4_2011_figures_put_apple_on_top_over_hp/