Archinect - News

Architects can now add accurate sun positioning in real-time with Morpholio Trace's new 'Shadow Maker' tool

2022-03-22T08:00:00-04:00

Morpholio today launched another powerful tool inside its popular TracePro app that allows architects, designers, and landscape architects to "control the sun." Dubbed "Shadow Maker," the new in-app feature lets users add and adjust solar positioning within a project in real-time, providing an accurate and informative way for shadows to be generated within drawings.

Shadow Maker sun positioning in Morpholio TracePro. Image courtesy of Morpholio.

Since the introduction of their Trace app for the iPad in 2012, Morpholio has been positioning itself as a leader in software applications made for architects by architects. After launching several easy-to-use new tools for designers, their latest feature is "game-changing for designers" according to Toru Hasegawa, Morpholio Co-Founder. "Architects can now instantly overlay their model with accurate, geo-located shadows to set or sample sun patterns and immediately use their impact to draw, sketch or design."

According to Morpholio, Shadow ...

Morpholio's new in-app feature for Trace, the Smart Hatch, bridges traditional hand drawing with smart technology

2021-03-23T13:24:00-04:00

With advanced versions of digital magic developing every day, architects and designers now are able to connect more fluidly with the global design community. In this paperless, new era we live in, we welcome a recently launched feature in Morpholio's Trace app, the Smart Hatch.

Morpholio has four apps built-in. The popular Trace app with the newest feature plugs the traditional architect profession into today’s digital world with smart hatching, “trace paper” capabilities, and the precision of AutoCAD intelligence.

With the use of an Apple Pencil, the Smart Hatch feature allows enhanced adjustments in the tolerance, shading, and scaling of a pattern, as well as saving into a new hatch library, as compared to AutoCAD. Users can use the Smart Fill feature to hatch in concrete and reinforced steel details, roof shingles and wall panels in elevations, and wood planking in floor plans.

Programming analysis with hatch diagrams is available as well. The ability to calculate the pricing a...

Morpholio Trace and Shapr3D launch new iOS 12 features to integrate 3D modeling and sketching for architects

2018-09-26T15:59:00-04:00

With Apple's recent release of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 12, we're now seeing new feature releases in a variety of apps. Two players in the world of architectural software, Morpholio Trace and Shapr3D, today announced a joint effort that promises to further bridge the divide between 3D modeling and sketching on the iPad Pro thanks to Apple’s Drag and Drop and the new universal 3D file type USDZ.

Credit: Jim Keen. Image courtesy of Morpholio.

Dubbed "Drag 'n' Fly", the new iOS 12 feature by Morpholio, a company that we've covered previously on Archinect, enables users to integrate live 3D models in Trace sketches, create infinite views, and draw over automatically generated perspective grids. Shapr3D models can now be exported directly to Trace via the new OBJ export, simplifying the switch between drawing and modeling.

Credit: Jim Keen. Image courtesy of Morpholio.

Morpholio Co-Founder Mark Collins explains the reason behind...

Bringing Augmented Reality for architects to the small screen: Morpholio launches Trace app for iPhone

2018-02-07T18:24:00-05:00

If you've already liked or used Morpholio's popular Trace app on the iPad Pro, you can now also get excited to put it to work on your small screen: TracePro just launched for iPhone and presents a powerful architectural application of Apple's ARKit augmented reality framework in a pocket-friendly format.

AR drawing

The app positions itself as a helpful tool in the field where critical design decisions have to be made consistently — with the amount of on-site design often outweighing planning in Concept and SD combined.

"Not only do budgets, scope changes and fast track schedules force important design decisions on site," Morpholio explains the need for TracePro, "but unforeseen field conditions, contractor errors and never ending client changes can all keep your team designing and problem solving throughout CA."

Scale photos

Five so-called "CA Super Tools" are the app's key features designed to make architects' lives in the field easier:

AR Drawing on Site: utilizing the iPhone's pow...

Morpholio's new "ScalePen" offers a new way to draw on Trace app

2016-03-22T18:44:00-04:00

It is not only a new way of working, it is part of the latest renaissance in drawing; imagining the heart of the designer merged with the brain of a computer.

Morpholio has just released “ScalePen”, a patent-pending tool used to draft on the developer’s popular "Trace" app for the iPad. The company’s co-creator, Anna Kenoff, views ScalePen as an “entirely new opportunity for architectural drawing… Rather than setting or keeping records of your own pen weight, Morpholio makes the software do the work for you.”

With the development of CAD, hand drafting has seemingly become a thing of the past. “Fortunately, creative production is fueled by much more than just efficiency”, says Morpholio, adding that “architects and designers have given new rise to hand drawing and sketching as part of their process - a renaissance no doubt ushered in by the touchscreen and stylus.”

The app offers an assortment of pen sizes that respond as the stylus is moved around, through and into the drawing. The ScalePen feature checks the drawing scale and zoom level continuously to automatically assign a calibrated set of technical pens. Morpholio suggests that it save...

Take your sketching to the next level: Morpholio launches Trace Pro app for the iPad Pro & Pencil

2015-11-11T19:54:00-05:00

Ever since Apple announced the launch of the supersized iPad Pro tablet and its Pencil companion, the anticipation grew which new apps—specifically developed for designers and creatives—could fully make use of the enhanced capacity: a more powerful A9X processor, larger 12.9-inch Retina display and stylus precision encouraged potential new features that neither traditional tablets nor desktop computers had been capable of. "It could offer a lot to designers who still bring out tracing paper before launching inDesign or Rhino," Nicholas Korody wrote on Archinect after the product launch in September.

One exciting new app that promises to fully bridge that gap between physical and digital sketching via iPad Pro and Pencil was just launched by Morpholio this week: Trace Pro.

Here is some more information we've received from Morpholio:

Trace Pro Unleashes 5 Super Tools:

Hyper Zooming with Scale:
Zoom from a plan sketch, into a room, into the furniture, and ultimately into the details. Trace...

The Morpholio Project launches Trace for the iPad

2012-09-25T18:04:00-04:00

The next generation of tracing paper can now be loaded onto your iPad.

New York, September 25, 2012 – The Morpholio Project announces the launch of its second app, simply called Trace. The app explores the role of technology in the conceptual phase of the design workflow through a digital version of trace paper, and fosters communication amongst a global design culture. Trace, essential to any design or creative process, allows users to instantly draw on top of imported images or background templates, layering comments or ideas to generate immediate, intelligent sketches that are easy to circulate.

The uniqueness of Trace is most visible in two primary modes. One is communication, in which the user can simply trace over something in order to give feedback or convey information quickly, and graphically. The second is idea exploration. “You are plugging yourself into a recursive feedback loop, as you iteratively build up an idea, taking several passes at it,” says co-creator Mark ...