C

C AD a t yo ur finge r tips

cadTouch R4 for iPad users guide

2008-2012 Martin F. Carianni. All Rights Reserved.!

Table of Contents
User Interface!

a. The Tools Bar!

b. The Transformations Bar!

c. The Bottom Bar!

d. Zooming and Panning!

Drafting with cadTouch R4!

Drawing Lines!

OSNAP and alignments!

Polylines!

10

Rectangles!

10

Sketches!

10

Circles, Arcs and Points!

11

Grip points!

11

Selection system!

12

Hatches!

13

Text!

14

Dimensions!

15

Object creation!

16

Editing and Transformations!

17

Delete, drag, rotate, mirror, scale!

17

Trim and offset!

18

Colors, line weights, line types and patterns!

19

Layers!

20

Objects Library!

21

CTR4 panel!

23

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1. User Interface

TOGGLE HELP FIELD

TOOLS BAR

REGEN MODEL

BOTTOM BAR

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TRANSFORMATIONS BAR

a. The Tools Bar

Main Panel: From the main panel you can create new files, open, save and
email your drawings

Line, polyline, sketch tools (tap and hold to unfold)

Rectangle tool

Circle, arc, point tools (tap and hold to unfold)

Hatch (fill) tool

Text tool

Dimensioning tool

Object creation tool

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b. The Transformations Bar

Delete: Select one or more objects, then press this button to delete.

Drag, drag a copy (remember to first select the objects to transform)

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(tap and hold to unfold)
Rotate, rotate a copy (remember to first select the objects to transform)
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(tap and hold to unfold)
Mirror, mirror a copy (remember to first select the objects to transform)
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(tap and hold to unfold)
Scale (remember to first select the objects to transform)

Trim (remember to first select two intersecting lines to trim)

Offset (remember to first select the lines, arcs or polylines to offset)

Explode: Select one or more objects, then press this button to explode into simpler
entities.

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c. The Bottom Bar

Hold: Press to activate window-selection mode, freezes zoom and pan, use two fingers for
window selection.

Info Window: Here cadTouch will prompt information: when you draw new geometry, when
you select geometry by tapping on it.
Undo/Redo: Tap to undo your last
operation. Tap and hold to Redo.

Objects Library / Layers: Tap and

hold to unfold.
Extra tools: Chang text/dimensions
size, pattern scale, query tools.

Colors - line weights - line types - patterns

Numeric keyboard: After you insert new geometry or transformations you

can redefine the length (and/or angle) of the highlighted measure by entering
its new length on this keyboard. cadTouch R4 is dimensionless when decimal
input is on so consider 1:1 scale; while it accepts inches as input when imperial input is on (it will automatically convert to feet-inches-fractions).

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d. Zooming and Panning

While using one finger on the screen will let you concentrate on drawing, two finger gestures will let you pan
and zoom.
- Zoom:
Just make a pinch in/out gesture to zoom out/in.
- Pan:
Panning occurs when you drag both fingers on the screen keeping the distance between them constant or
almost constant.

Note: Zoom and panning is disabled while you are in hold mode.

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2. Drafting with cadTouch R4

To make cadTouch R4 for iPad your favorite mobile drafting tool keep in mind this useful tips:
* cadTouch R4 is dimensionless when set to decimal input, this means you can draw in meters, inches or
millimeters at your wish. Calculation results and therefore given in [units] u, u2, u4. Even if the workspace is
almost infinite, choose your working units with common sense (IE. meters for sitework, centimeters for details, millimeters for steel detailing), try to proportion your drawing with the cadTouchs grid.
* cadTouch R4 is takes inches as input when its set to imperial units, feets and fractions will be automatically
calculated, so to enter a 1-5 length, just type 17.5 on the keypad.
* cadTouch is a professional application, uses a large amount of RAM. It's good practice to quit other apps
before using cadTouch intensively, so you have more memory for your drawings and objects. cadTouch is
more stable on newer generations of the iPad due to increased amount of RAM memory.
* The DWG/DXF I/O in this release is completely new, way faster and way more compatible than before.
Anyhow, always remember you are running on a mobile platform and that the amount of RAM available is
limited, so if you encounter problems opening a large DWG/DXF file, consider splitting it into multiple drawings. Remember that DWG is way more advanced that DXF in terms of memory and disk usage, so try to
always use DWG as your main format when possible.
* Pressing the home button saves your current work, so there is no risk on losing your drawings, the drawing
is then loaded back when you open back cadTouch. If the drawing you are working with is very large,
startup times could be very long. To avoid this issue, save your work manually and create a new blank file
before quitting the application.
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Drawing Lines
To draw lines, first select the Lines tool from the left toolbox, this activates line-mode. Now swipe your finger on the screen and release to set the starting point for your line, note that OSNAP is always on. Now
swipe your finger again to set the end point of your line. The length of the line can be then changed with the
numeric keyboard on the bottom of the screen, just type the new length and the line you draw will change
dimension. Tap once to draw another line, tap twice to end the command (or press the lines button again).

Editing angles:

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OSNAP and alignments

OSNAP in cadTouch is a magnet-like always-on feature, with this feature you can "grip" to existing entities
(at end-points, middle-points, intersection, perpendicular, tangent).
Alignments in cadTouch is also a magnet-like always-on feature, but instead of gripping directly to the object,
you grip to a virtual vertical/horizontal line. Alignments generate when you move your finger around endpoints.

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Polylines

Rectangles

Sketches
With the sketch tool you can draw freely, the curves you draw are polylines, so they have all of the properties
of a polyline: you can drag grip points, change colors, line widths, etc.

Tap and hold on the line button to

unfold the polyline/sketch menu

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Circles, Arcs and Points

Grip points

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Selection system

2nd finger

One finger

1st finger

PRO tip:
To select hatches, you should tap on the pattern itself, tapping on blank areas of the hatch won't select it.

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Hatches

PRO tip:
You can create hatches even using the pattern-change tool, pay attention that when you use this tool the
boundary of the hatch remains selected.

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Text

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Dimensions

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Object creation

Important:
The object creation tool is a powerful instrument that allows you to group an indefinite number of objects together, big objects are hard to handle on a mobile device with limited RAM. Use this tools with caution,
newer generations of iOS devices have much more RAM than it's predecessors.
The same considerations should be taken when exploding big objects.
It's recommended to perform complex operations on a dedicated DWG model, remember you can always
merge-back your work.

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3. Editing and Transformations

Delete, drag, rotate, mirror, scale

PRO tip:
If you tap and hold on these icons, you can use the drag a copy, rotate a copy and mirror a copy command.

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Trim and offset

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Colors, line weights, line types and patterns

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Layers

Drawing regeneration

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4. Objects Library

To open the objects library you need to tap the bookshelf-style icon on the bottom-right part of the screen
(remember this button is the one you can tap and hold to switch to the layers panel).
1. Inserting an object
To insert an object you need to tap on it's icon and choose "Insert object" from the menu. The object's insertion point (which is set at the object center for new objects previously created with cadTouch) will be put in
the middle of the screen, whenever you are on the drawing. Original scale of the object will be preserved. It's
a good practice to name objects (when you create them) with a scale indicator (i.e.: Simple chair-meters).

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2. Editing an object
When you press the "Edit block" button on the after mentioned menu, cadTouch will ask you if you want to
open the file (this will close your current drawing, losing unsaved changes).
When the object is open, you can edit it as if it where a normal cadTouch drawing, when you finish you
should save your work; to do it, just open back the objects library panel, tap on the object you want to save
and select "Save As".
3. Replace objects in drawing
This tool will replace all the objects in the current drawing with the one selected, all objects with the same
name will be replaced. It's a powerful very RAM consuming task so take caution when using this tool on big
drawings (remember to close all other apps on your device when performing complex tasks on cadTouch).
4. More...
You can mail, export to photo album and save as PDF your objects.
All the other menus and options in the Objects Library are the same that the ones found in the CTR4 panel,
so you can read the documentation now following.

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5. CTR4 panel
The CTR4 menu is home for the I/O features of cadTouch. The first icon on the left is the current drawing
button.

1. Saving your work

To save your work as a new file, just tap at the text field with grayed-out text "New file name", the keyboard
will pop and you will be able to enter the new file name, press Done (on the keyboard) and the file will be
saved. When you save your drawing, a picture of the central part of the screen is used as the icon of the respective button.
To replace an existing document, tap on the document you want to replace and select "Save As".

2. Creating a new drawing

To create a new drawing, tap the "File" button on the top-left part of the panel. This will replace the current
drawing with a new blank one, you will lose unsaved changes.
Remember you can use this before quitting the app and a very large drawing is currently open, to ensure a
faster launch the next time you open cadTouch (so it won't auto-load a big file that could even cause memory
shortage).

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3. Getting files into cadTouch: opening an existing drawing

cadTouch R4 has three main ways to get access to your files:
a. iTunes file sharing:

You can send files to cadTouch from any computer with iTunes installed (you can get iTunes for free from
Apple's website, iTunes is compatible with Mac OSX and Windows).
Just select you device on the iTunes left bar, click on the "Apps" tab and then you will see this "File Sharing"
panel as you can see on the image above.
From there, select cadTouch, you can now drag and drop files and use the "Add" and "Save to" buttons.
To delete a file, select it from the list and press the "del" button on your keyboard.
b. Email:
When you receive a DWG or DXF file from your iPad "Mail" app, you can tap on the file and select "Open
with", then choose cadTouch from the list.
Warning: this will replace any unsaved drawing currently open in cadTouch.
c. Another iOS app:
Many apps have an "Open with" option (specially file-management apps, cadTouch is compatible with free
apps like dropbox, FTP sharing apps, etc), you can tap on the file and select "Open with", then choose
cadTouch from the list.
Warning: this will replace any unsaved drawing currently open in cadTouch.
You can then open a file from the CTR4 panel, tap on the desired file and press open.

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4. Merge
You can insert an entire drawing into your current one, you will be prompted for the insertion offset about the
origin (0,0,0) in absolute coordinates. This operation will not replace the current drawing.

5. Mail DWG file

This option will let you send a saved file as an email attachment.
6. Mail PDF file

You can generate a PDF file (ready for printing), tapping on the "current drawing" icon and selecting "Mail as
PDF". This will place the whole drawing (scaled to fit) in an A4-sized paper and will prepare the PDF to be
sent as a mail attachment.
In future updates we'll add support for different drawing scale, window selection of printing area and different
paper size.
7. Save image to photo album
The last option will save an image to your device's photo album. It will save an image of the current viewport,
you can send that image via mail from the photos app on your device.
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8. Settings

From the settings panel you can:

a. Visualization unit
When you set cadTouch on decimal, input is dimensionless. When you set it on Imperial, the numbers you
enter are inches, with decimal precision and automatic conversion to feets and fractioning.
b. Grip
If you turn this option on the drawing vector will clamp movement to 1unit increments, handy when working in
millimeters or in general when you know you are working with lengths always higher than 1 unit.
c. Grid
d. Zoom-based line-types and hatch pattern scale
When this option is on, newly created content is scaled so it's visible on the current viewport.
e. Zoom-based text and dimension scale
When this option is on, newly created content is scaled so it's visible on the current viewport.

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2008-2012 Martin Carianni. All Rights Reserved.!

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