As a result, I've been keeping an eye out for a "proper" CAD application for the iPad for a while and recently I spotted CartoMap and decided to give it a whirl.
I'd previously tried the AutoDesk AutoCad WS app and had been disappointed to discover it is only really a viewer, but CartoMap appeared from the review to give full editing features, and thankfully that's what it does.
The interface for this app has clearly inherited it's design from desktop based applications rather than sticking to the usual iPad ways of interacting. Some of these differences are for the better and much more suited to "big" applications like CAD. For example, If you choose to open a file when you already have a file open, rather than just prompting you to Save or Cancel, this app allows a Save changes, Close losing changes or cancel. That ability to close a file you've edited without saving the changes is often lacking from other apps, but it makes sense and with CAD being so easy to mess things up and need to revert to a saved version, it's welcome in this app.
The interface is quite minimal, leaving as much of the screen available to view your work as possible, and when you start adding or editing items, the interface gets even more out of the way leaving only a small window at the top prompting you what it is expecting next (eg to enter the radius of a circle) and a couple of little icons in the corners, one of which pops up a quick "snap to guide" selection tool.
The usual basic CAD drawing tools are present. Lines, arcs, polylines, circles, rectangles, points and text are obvious in the pop up tools. Other tools include dimension lines, creating and using symbols (collections of other drawing objects into a single new meta-object), delete and settings.
The interface works well and allows all the usual options of entering coordinates directly or using snap to guides for the usual list of points including, end points, intersections, mid-points, centre points of curves etc.
The app also includes an automatic snap to detection method where you just tap somewhere close to the snap point you want to use and the app presents you with a list of the points nearby to choose from. It does this by presenting a new screen with the snap to point shown with a pin and the element it relates to highlighted, which works very quickly simply and intuitively.
I'm far from an expert in CAD, but the little I have tried with it so far has all worked fine, but it is only basic editing. You wouldn't want to be creating the next London Gerkin floor plans with it - but you can load the plans in the field and could probably make slight corrections or additions and then sync those edits back in the office. As you can see, there a various file transfer options using wifi, iTunes or sending the file as an email. I also tested opening a file from Safari using the "open in..." option. This worked, although when it first displayed the more complicated file I used as a test, it just displayed a blank screen, but when I closed it and re-opened it, it worked fine.
It is not without it's bugs, even with the little testing and playing I've done it has crashed a few times on very simple files, but with regular saves just in case, it's possible to work with it.
I've probably missed mentioning 90% of the things this app can do, but if I say it includes layers, DWG/DXF/CTM files support, multiple undo/redo, Unicode support, cut/extend objects then I've at least mentioned some of them :)
It's not cheap in App terms at £11.99, but if it does what you need then it's probably cheap at twice the price.
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