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CatherineVeraGat

Suspended
Original poster
May 6, 2017
154
48
What is the best architecture apps available on the iPad?

What I want to do is to make floor plans, design some parts of the houses, and put furniture in the floor plans to make an mock-up of what it would look like.
 

imHappy

macrumors regular
Feb 27, 2011
187
14
Hey, first of all, for our field, honestly ios is truly lacking. When I had my ipad pro i really tried to make it work but it is just way too inefficient for a fully integrated workflow.

The ipad is only good for the preliminary design process, ill list the apps I used.

- Morpholio trace is the best app for designing as it replicates tracing paper quite good.
- Graphic by indeo works for vectoring drawings, it however sucks when trying to make it work with illustrator, the exporting as svg or pdf sucks.
- Autocad 360, good concept but honestly it WILL make you waste time rather than using the proper client for cad work.
- Shap3d and umake, never really got into it, im just too efficient with sketchup to even want to try/use them more. Learn formit by autodesk as eventually it will integrate with revit (HUGE PLUS.)

All in all, if OSX sucks for the lack of architecture programs; ios is exponentially worse. Preliminary design does work with it but you will be using your laptop for production quality work nevertheless (construction documentation, design panels, renders, modelling etc etc.). It will be hassle for you to integrate the ipad with laptop/desktop.

Ps.If I were a senior architect/boss and had hired interns/architects working for me then it should work quite good since you will literally be designing the concept by sketching, and ur employees would make the production documents. That I believe is a realistic scenario were the ipad would certainly shine. (Still believe a surface pro is the better purchase but that is another topic.)

Sorry for errors, Peruvian here!
 
Last edited:

CatherineVeraGat

Suspended
Original poster
May 6, 2017
154
48
Hey, first of all, for our field, honestly ios is truly lacking. When I had my ipad pro i really tried to make it work but it is just way too inefficient for a fully integrated workflow.

The ipad is only good for the preliminary design process, ill list the apps I used.

- Morpholio trace is the best app for designing as it replicates tracing paper quite good.
- Graphic by indeo works for vectoring drawings, it however sucks when trying to make it work with illustrator, the exporting as svg or pdf sucks.
- Autocad 360, good concept but honestly it WILL make you waste time rather than using the proper client for cad work.
- Shap3d and umake, never really got into it, im just too efficient with sketchup to even want to try/use them more. Learn formit by autodesk as eventually it will integrate with revit (HUGE PLUS.)

All in all, if OSX sucks for the lack of architecture programs; ios is exponentially worse. Preliminary design does work with it but you will be using your laptop for production quality work nevertheless (construction documentation, design panels, renders, modelling etc etc.). It will be hassle for you to integrate the ipad with laptop/desktop.

Ps.If I were a senior architect/boss and had hired interns/architects working for me then it should work quite good since you will literally be designing the concept by sketching, and ur employees would make the production documents. That I believe is a realistic scenario were the ipad would certainly shine. (Still believe a surface pro is the better purchase but that is another topic.)

Sorry for errors, Peruvian here!

Thank you! I believe working on a Mac would be best for me.
 

GerritV

macrumors 68020
May 11, 2012
2,262
2,721
What is the best architecture apps available on the iPad?
What I want to do is to make floor plans, design some parts of the houses, and put furniture in the floor plans to make an mock-up of what it would look like.

I would recommend you to take a look at Concepts.
It does have a learning curve, but can probably do most of what you seem to want.
 

imHappy

macrumors regular
Feb 27, 2011
187
14
Huh? How about Vectorworks, ArchiCAD?

Yeah of course archicad if you are in europe; if u are in USA, revit all the way!

What about solidworks, any mac widely used counterpart? Wanna try rendering? I can do it in my xps to get out of hurry if on the move with 3dsmax vray or corona. Perhaps wanna try the newest twinmotion with unreal engine? woops guess u gotta bootcamp!

Osx would be amazing for architecture if it only had more developer support sadly. Even then, a custom pc for our field of work is a necessity though.
 
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