Transcription
Hello and welcome to Morpholio Trace! In this video, we'll introduce you to Morpholio Trace, the best app for design drawing, and show you how easy it is to create your first drawing in five simple steps. Plus, there are a ton of secret tips sprinkled throughout this video that you don't want to miss.
People always ask, "Why Trace?" Trace has two things that are important to remember. First, it's a scale drawing app for all types of design. Second, our goal is to make it easy for both pros and beginners to sketch out their ideas right from the start.
Let's go through some examples of how different types of designers are using the app. Architects use Trace throughout the entire design process, from the beginning of concept through the end of construction, to create conceptual sketches, scaled plans, sections, elevations, detail axons, diagrams, perspectives, PDF markups, sketches on 3D models, and on-site photos. Interior designers create concept sketches, furniture plans, interior elevations, and scaled sections. Landscape designers and architects draw site plans, planting plans, master plans, site analysis diagrams, perspectives, and sketches on scaled maps. Industrial designers create dynamic concept sketches for different products and wearables, vehicle designs, and furniture ideas. Lastly, DIY home designers sketch through kitchen designs, furniture reorganizations, and bathroom floor plans.
When you first open the app, you'll see the project page where all of your projects are stored. On the left sidebar are a few categories to view your recently opened or recently deleted projects. You can also tap settings to set all of your defaults or look at help for some incredible resources. On the top right are a few buttons to help you organize your projects, including making new folders and changing the sort order of your projects. And lastly, the most important button: tap the plus icon to start a new project.
Tap "Blank" to quick start a sketch from scratch, use "Custom" to set a specific page size and scale, hit "Photo" to sketch on top of an image from the Photos app, and "PDF" lets you import any PDF file to sketch over, including full drawing sets. With "Map," you can input any address and get a scaled map to draw over. You can import editable Morpholio Trace files to collaborate on drawings, use "Camera" to take a quick photo to sketch on top of, and with "Paper," you can sketch on top of amazing paper textures. The AR perspective tool allows you to snap a photo and get a scaled perspective grid overlaid to create precise perspective drawings. Lastly, you can import 3D models or use "Room Plan" to scan a space and generate a scaled 3D model to sketch over. There are tutorials for each of these different types of projects that you can check out in the caption below.
Now, let's get started creating your first drawing in Morpholio Trace. We're going to walk through five easy steps to draw a scaled floor plan on top of a PDF site plan, like this beautiful drawing by Aasha Isah Hawk.
The first step is to import your background. In this case, we'll bring in a PDF from cloud storage to sketch on top of. You can navigate to any cloud storage and then simply tap on the file to create a new project. You'll see that automatically, the background of this project is the PDF underlay. Remember, the most important aspect of Trace is that you are always working to scale. So before we begin, let's set that up. Tap the scale button here to set up your scale. You'll see that there are two crosshairs that can be placed on a known dimension, and then you can input that dimension to register your scale. One thing to keep in mind is that you always want to select the largest known dimension on your plan to get the most accurate reading.
So we have this side of the plot boundary that's 164 ft. I'll input that here and 0 in, and then when I'm ready, I'll hit the green check. You'll see that my scale is registered. Now, if I zoom in to the graphic scale here and turn on my ruler, you'll see that the scale is perfectly aligned, and I am ready to start drawing at a 1:1 scale.
After you set your scale, it's really helpful to draw with a scale grid as well, so let's set that up. If you tap your wrench icon here and then "Scale," you'll see that there are two buttons to set your grid and to show your grid. We'll turn on our grid here and then tap "Set Grid" to set it up. I'll zoom into the plan where I want to draw on top of, which is this one right here, and I'll just grab this target and place it into the corner to set the origin of my grid. I think I'll set a 10 ft grid to sketch on top of; that feels pretty good, so I'll input that here. Then, I want to rotate my grid 14° so that it aligns with the direction of my site.
Now, here's the secret: if you want your grid to fade into the background a little bit so it doesn't overpower your drawing, you can reduce the opacity of your grid with this button here. Tap the green check, and now when we zoom in, you'll see that our grid is ready to sketch with.
The next step to getting your workspace set up is adding a layer. Your layer toolbar is located on the right side. Tap this button to add a new drawing layer. You can also add images or PDFs with this middle button or add text annotations here. There are a few important things to keep in mind with layers. First, the size of your layer is determined by your current view. So if we zoom into the unit that we want to draw over and add a new layer, that layer will be perfectly sized for this drawing. Next, you are always drawing on the topmost layer, just like a real stack of trace paper. If you want to draw on a layer below that, just double-tap the layer to set it as the active layer and then add your stroke. You'll see it's a little grayed out because it's on the layer below. If you added a layer that you don't want anymore, you can swipe it to the left to delete it. You'll notice that there are two warning signs here because this layer action is permanent. If you want to change your layer color or modify it, simply tap the layer action button here, where you can change your paper color and opacity, as well as other modifications. The last thing we'll do is to reduce the opacity of this base layer so it fades into the background and our new sketch shines through.
Now that our layers are ready, let's get our pen set up. Over here is your pen toolbar. If you tap any of the pen slots, you'll see the full range of options. All of the pens, pencils, and brushes are super realistic. Check out all of these incredible textures! Plus, be sure to play with the pressure and tilt of your Apple Pencil to see how each pen reacts. You'll be amazed.
Here's a secret tip: while drawing, if you tap the screen with two fingers, you can undo your last stroke, and if you tap with three fingers, you can redo it. One thing to remember is that your eraser is also a pen, so if you select any of your pen slots, you can select the eraser, maybe make a bigger line, and then you'll be able to remove any drawing that you created in Trace.
Once your pens are set, you can select your line type here with a few options. You can also scroll through different color palettes here or tap the color palette button to see all of the amazing preloaded color palettes for you to choose from. Alternatively, you can select this plus button and choose your own colors to create your own custom color palettes in Trace. You can always get back to the same line weight to keep your drawing consistent by selecting a specific pen size. One last secret on the pen toolbar is you can tap this button here to open your brush settings, including the smoothness of your line, to be able to draw smooth curves.
Now we're ready to start drawing! I went ahead and drew these guidelines with the grid and ruler to start organizing the plan. Next, I'll grab a light gray pencil to start roughing out the spatial zones. To speed things up, I drew the rest of the sketch, which you can see here. Next, we'll start to sketch out our construction lines with a light blue grease pencil. I've started to add in some construction lines, but let's zoom into the kitchen. We can determine where the kitchen counter will go by turning on the ruler to draw with straight lines. You can double-tap the ruler to rotate it and then simply line it up with the grid and strike a line.
What's cool about the ruler is that you can also draw straight lines anywhere along your page. Simply turn on "Assist" in your ruler settings, and then you can draw parallel and perpendicular to your ruler's edge. After a few minutes of sketching, you can see how I built up the rest of the construction lines. Next, I want a hard line on top of these construction lines, so I'll zoom into this area over here on my plan, grab a technical pen, and turn on my ruler. I'll move the ruler to the area that I want to draw and start marking out my straight lines. I can also move the ruler over to the side to continue drawing parallel and perpendicular lines. If I need to draw along this angle, I can simply rotate my ruler to the angle that I want and then move it out of the way to continue drawing parallel and perpendicular to the ruler's edge.
One other secret with the super ruler is if you want to draw straight lines in any direction, simply start drawing and then tap one finger while you're drawing to toggle into an infinite angle mode. You can then draw lines in any direction and get them perfectly straight. To switch back into angle snap mode, tap your finger again, and you'll be locked into the ruler's edge.
After a few more minutes of drawing, I've added all of the architectural hard lines, and we're ready to bring this drawing to life. I'll go ahead and turn off these other layers so that you can see all of the lines of our hard line drawing. To take this drawing to the next level, you can add fills, hatches, and entourage. I've started to add furniture and built-ins with stencils and added some fills underneath to bring this drawing to life. Let's see how you can do that as well.
Let's check out hatches and fills. First, we want to add a wood color and hatch to the kitchen, so let's zoom into the kitchen and then turn on our Smart Fill and hatch tool. All you have to do is grab this target, locate it in the region, and it will fill that region with your color. One cool secret about the Smart Fill tool is that not only does it allow you to add fills and hatches, but it's also calculating areas for you. If you continue to draw, you'll see that it live updates your reading. This is really helpful when you're drawing in concept with areas to fill. To fill our area with this color, simply tap the paint bucket, and you'll fill it. Now let's add a texture on top. I'll go to my hatch library, and there are a ton of different hatches to check out, but for right now, we'll just grab this line hatch. First, we'll change the color to a darker color, and then we'll adjust the scale of this hatch to align with what we want. Next, I'll drop the opacity a little bit to make it fade into the background, and when I'm ready, I'll hit the paint bucket, and I've applied that hatch to my area.
Now I've gone ahead and added some more hatches to the rest of the plan that you can see here. Next, let's show how these spaces can be used by adding some people into the drawing using stencils, just like we did for the furniture and appliances throughout the rest of the drawing. I'll zoom into the living room, where we can add a person reading on this couch. I'll start by turning on my stencils and opening the stencil library, where you can see all of the incredible categories of stencils that are available for you to use today. We'll focus on the interiors and select a person reading a book right here. Now I'll resize and place the stencil, and I'm going to grab a white pen, and I will simply color in this stencil. You can see that it's being applied, and by adding in white, I'm also covering up anything underneath that drawing. I'll then go back and select the line version of that same drawing here so I can draw in the black lines, and you can see now, in a matter of seconds, we've added this person reading a book onto the plan.
Now I've gone ahead and added a few more stencils throughout the plan, and you can see how vibrant and lively this plan is now with people and things sprinkled throughout the drawing. One thing you'll notice is that I added my person to the wrong layer. I actually want it to be on the layer with the rest of the stencils. Here, with the lasso tool, you can select any drawing that you made in Trace and copy between layers or merge one layer with another. First, turn on the lasso tool and then double-tap the layer that you want to select from. Draw a lasso around the drawing that you want to move, and then double-tap the layer that you want to move that drawing to. Tap outside to confirm this move, and then tap the lasso again to exit lasso mode. You can now see that I've successfully moved this person from this layer onto the stencil layer.
The last secret tip is that you can turn any single drawing into a multi-page PDF set. If you tap the PDF manager button on any project, you'll see all of your pages appear in that project. Let's say we want to draw a few iterations of this plan to explore different options. From this mode, tap "Edit" over here to select your drawing, and then tap "Duplicate" on the bottom. You can now tap on that layer twice to open it and start sketching a new iteration of your drawing. When you finish your drawing and you're ready to share it, simply tap the export button up here to share your drawing as a PDF, an image, a PSD, or an editable Morpholio Trace file that can be shared with collaborators.
And that's it! Now you have all the tools to create your first drawing in Morpholio Trace. If you've enjoyed this video, please grab your Apple Pencil and tap the like and subscribe buttons to see more tutorials and to stay up to date on the latest new features. We can't wait to see what you make, so share your work and tag Morpholio to get featured. Thank you for watching, and be sure to check out our other how-to videos!