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iOS: The Latest Architecture and News

Award-Winning Sketching App 'Concepts' Releases New Update Including Customized Brushes

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Courtesy of David Clynk

Being a 21st-century designer is not always a walk in the park, but it certainly has its perks. Fortunately, innovative product and software designers have created numerous programs that transform our ideas and visions into visual and tangible reality.

Concepts, the “next-generation design platform” is an iOS application, suitable for all design and engineering fields. Accommodating almost 80% of all design tasks, product designers, fashion designers, game designers, and industrial engineers can benefit from what the application has to offer. The TopHatch creation - which is trusted by leading designers at Disney, Apple, Nike, PlayStation, Unity, and several other leading corporations - was initiated as a simple prototype, and gradually built on feedback and innovative updates.

Following our Top Apps for Architects article, the award-winning vector-based app, is launching a brand new update, with exclusive features that enable a limitless, customized, and more precise creative experience, exclusively shared with ArchDaily readers.

What’s New?

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The Top 5 Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Apps for Architects

This article was originally published by Archipreneur.

Virtual reality and augmented reality tools for the AEC industry are getting increasingly better and more optimized. As prices keep dropping, there are fewer reasons why every architect, engineer, contractor, and owner shouldn’t use some form of VR/AR in bringing their projects to life.

From being a novelty a few years ago, VR/AR solutions are slowly becoming a medium that’s transforming the way professionals in the AEC industry communicate, create and experience content. Offering a more immersive experience of architectural designs, but also products and areas related to space building, VR and AR tools are becoming an industry standard that offers rapid iterations and opportunity to refine designs in collaboration with clients and colleagues.

12 Top Apps for Architects on the Construction Site

We have previously published the best apps for architects, many of which try to boost creativity and productivity for project design. Now, we’ve put together a series of helpful apps for the development and management of construction projects. From digital measuring tools to instant software-generated reports of work progress, we hope this new construction technology will be most useful to you.

Mobile App Renders the 'Infosphere' in Realtime to Reveal a Hidden World

A new mobile application created by Dutch designer Richard Vijgen visualises the 'infosphere'—an interdependent 'network of networks' that is "populated by informational entities"—in realtime augmented reality, transforming our intangible environment into an abstracted world of pulsating waves of energy. We are "completely surrounded by a hidden system of data cables and radio signals from access points, cell towers and overhead satellites," according to the designer. The Architecture of Radio works by "reversing the ambient nature of the 'infosphere', hiding the visible while revealing the invisible technological landscape we interact with through our devices."

Astropad: Use Your iPad As A Professional Graphics Tablet

Astropad, an app for iOS and Mac, transforms your existing iPad into a professional graphics tablet without the need for additional hardware. Having been developed by Matt Ronge and Giovanni Donelli - both former Apple engineers - the app allows for the iPad to act as a extended trackpad as well as work with most third-party styluses.

Portable Precision: Scale Drawing On iOS

Arrette Scale have released an update ($8.99) for their iOS app which addresses the level of precision and dexterity in the use of the Edge Tools, which have new controls and behavior. The app itself has proved popular among architects, aiming to provide designers with a simple, familiar drawing environment usable by anyone comfortable with traditional drawing tools. Allowing users to digitally review work by sharing ideas and drawings, Arrette’s platform welcomes incremental design changes and collaboration on without the need for printing reams of paper.

Find out what's new after the break.

Pixelmator for iPad: Sophisticated Photo Editing On The Go

Pixelmator, an app which has been familiar to Mac users since 2011, have released a version of their powerful photo editing software for iPad. Although the App Store is awash with photo editing and manipulation packages, Pixelmator's clean interface and collection of the most used features iPad users require, makes it a good substitute for desktop based software packages when on the move. Alongside allowing image enhancement, a "painting engine, precise colour correction, and live histograms" (allowing you to gauge real-time colour values as you edit), the app also takes step into providing "layers, non-destructive layer styles and a collection of professional-grade selection tools."

AD App Guide: Morpholio Board 2.0.

Consistently ranked as among some of the best digital tools available for architects and designers, the team behind the Morpholio Project today release Board 2.0., the second version of their moodboard and layout app for iOS. The app has been made possible by a number of collaborations with high profile interior designers in order to develop a 'gallery' of "significant design objects", with contributions from the likes of Dyson, Herman Miller, and Knoll. For the past year Morpholio have "assembled research groups and canvased design leaders worldwide" in order to better understand the power and potential of the 'board'. The general consensus was that getting style, products, and sketching onto a single platform could "change the way designers access, build, and share ideas."

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CurrentSet: A Digital Drawing App That Fosters Collaboration

CurrentSet, one of a number of cloud-based digital apps for managing construction drawings on the go, seeks to foster collaboration among architects, project managers and on-site professionals. Uniquely, the app is offered free of charge before allowing users to add features as and when they require them.

Top 10 Technical Apps for Architects

Building upon our Top 10 Apps for Architects, this collection brings together some of the best quality and most valued technical apps for designing, sketching, calculating and collaborating. Although the majority of those featured here are designed solely for the iOS platform, every time we collate lists such as these it's clear that more and more high quality apps for the Android and Windows platforms are being developed. From condensed versions of large scale software packages that architects and designers use every day, to blank canvases to scratch ideas down onto, you might just find an app that could improve the way you work.

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App Review: Arrette Scale - Precision Scale Drawing

Part of an increasing trend of apps which allow precision scale drawing, Arrette Scale seeks to provide designers with a simple, familiar drawing environment usable by anyone comfortable with traditional drawing tools. Allowing users to digitally review work by sharing ideas and drawings, Arrette's platform welcomes incremental design changes and collaboration on without the need for printing reams of paper.

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App Review: Archisketch - "Sketch and Doodle to Scale"

Although tablets have opened up a whole new range of possibilities for architects and designers, using them for drawing and doodling is often a clumsy experience. In many cases there's far too little accuracy and far too much complexity when it comes to working simple operations. Archisketch, which was formerly known as Archipad, seeks to streamline this experience with a smooth, cleanly designed app for iPad that not only allows you to import drawings and doodle over them, but also draw to scale.

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SketchUp Announces Mobile Viewer for iPad

SketchUp have recently unveiled the latest app in their suite, SketchUp Mobile Viewer for iPad. Allowing "on the go" access to models, the app also features access to "the entire universe" of files in their 3D Warehouse. Users can use the same familiar features, such as Orbit, Pan and Zoom, to "present their own private 3D models to clients and partners." With a price tag of $9.99 from Apple's App Store, early reviews suggest that this is a good first step with some way yet to go. Being the first ever SketchUp tablet product (with a planned Android version in the works), it has been released in conjunction with SketchUp 2014 which incorporated BIM capabilities for the very first time.

Top 10 Apps for Architects

Following our readers poll last year, here's an updated list of what we think are the best ten apps for architects. From condensed versions of large scale programmes architects and designers use every day, to blank canvases to scratch ideas down onto, you might just find an app that could improve the way you work.