Product Review: TurboViewer Pro 2.0 for iPad

Last year in the early summer Royal Farros, Chairman and CEO of IMSI/Design, made a pretty powerful statement. He said, “We really believe that the iPad represents an inflection point in the industry. It has phenomenal portability with its very long battery life…and with Multi-touch you simply can’t match what it can do with any other computing device.”

After reviewing TurboViewer 2.0, our previous view that Farros was already speaking our language, was further confirmed. It is not just that he is making a bold prediction about the impact of a game-changing device–anyone can do that! But rather that IMSI/Design is clearly showing what they mean by “inflection point” in the CAD industry.

The Key is Immediacy

On a personal note, I’ve been toting around an Apple iPad 2 since it came out. I couldn’t wait to use it as a tool for practicing architecture. I was very excited about what I could possibly do out in the field and what older processes could be replaced by this new tool. I was particularly interested in “speeding up” work flow processes that normally were tied down to limitations in the field or repetition back at the office or both. But here is what I learned: if the new process on the iPad isn’t fast enough to keep up with the old analog process, it doesn’t matter all that much if you are speeding up workflows downstream.

Let me explain it more clearly. Say you typically take field meeting notes on a pad of paper. Then you type up those notes back at the office. Say you often sketch up details and ideas for the client or the contractor as part of those notes on paper. Now you have an iPad. And you want to do all this work directly in the field and not burden yourself with the conversion from analog to digital back at the office. In theory, you should save time. But here is the rub. If the process on the iPad is anywhere more than 25 percent slower than the old analog process, you will not find the reward you are looking for. And if the process needs to keep pace with the flow of meetings, then it must be just as fast as analog or faster.

As it turns out, not a lot of iOS apps for AEC professionals meet this criteria yet. They offer streamlining by “everywhere access” and elimination of “double data entry” back at the office, but if you can’t keep up with others or an existing workflow it doesn’t matter how great the tool is–eventually you will stop using it.

Why TurboViewer Pro Succeeds

Given that criteria then, the reason why TurboViewer and TurboViewer Pro succeed as top notch tools in the new mobile app space is this: They are simple viewers that provide the market with CAD file viewing needs that normally have been served with mobile laptops. But they exceed laptops because they view the data faster, provide easier mobility, and also provide unique “one-of-a-kind” viewing experiences.

Let’s start with the uniqueness factor. With TurboViewer and its Pro sister app you have the power to spin 3D models around effortlessly with your finger tip. It is like having the object in your hand. The combination of Apple’s Multi-touch user-interface and CAD/3D is wonderful when it is delivered this smoothly. And it is very smooth! Take the Wall-E.dwg file shown in the image above. (see image 01). TurboViewer Pro gives you an excellent Views menu with easy to understand icons and viewing options. It is so easy to reach out and touch the object on the screen and start spinning little Wall-E around.

If you get to where you have lost control and spun the model around in a way you don’t like (sometimes that can happen) you simply re-choose a typical view from the Views menu. (image 01) From there you have the option of axon, and all the various sides of an object. And with the Pro version you get Perspective options as well, giving you preconfigured lens starting at 28mm Landscape mode up to 50mm Object mode. (see image 03)

 

Other unique things that are not so easy to do in a CAD application on a laptop are the simple way you can switch to various visual styles. You can easily toggle between line view, hidden line view, X-ray mode, shaded openGL and more. The X-ray mode is particularly cool for buildings; SketchUp users in particular with be at home with this viewing method. (see images 02)

next page: Other Details & Closing Comments

You also have full layers management control in TurboViewer Pro 2.0. You can interactively select layers to be on or off. There are All Visible, All Invisible and Invert button options to work with. (see image 04)

Getting your data onto TurboViewer Pro on the iPad or iPhone is fairly easy. Your best bet is to email it to yourself. You can also use Dropbox, WebDav or FTP or other web downloads. But for many, the simplest method will be email, preferably back at the office prior to departure. This way your files travel faster on LANs or fast WiFi and are not limited to cellular bandwidth limits. We think it would be wonderful someday if IMSI/Design produced plugins for CAD programs which would allow a direct export of the CAD data to an iPad connected to your Mac or PC.  It could be an export process that shuttles the required files to the iPad or iPhone by forcing a sync.

Finally we should mention the speed. TurboViewer, TurboViewer X and TurboViewer Pro are all equally lightening fast. In fact, getting a 7 MB urban design model into TurboViewer Pro took just 10 seconds. That’s ten seconds from selecting the file attachment in my email and choosing TurboViewer Pro to open it. File load time is wicked fast, application load time is quick and the fluidity of moving models is superb. The whole experience is quite impressive. Obviously, files several orders of magnitudes may not work as quickly as these files used in this view but for general purposes we feel this application is top notch in terms of speed.

So does this mean it meets the threshold for immediacy needs? Yes. And you are never going to spin a 3D model that is printed out in traditional blueprints, on site in front of everyone’s eyes. But with TurboViewer Pro you can.

Other Details

TurboViewer Pro 2.0 includes many new features not in its first incarnation. The update, which happened last month before the holidays, includes most importantly, the ability to view numerous popular CAD file formats beyond Autodesk’s DWG and DXF formats. We tested two such formats, IGS (IGES drawing) and SAT (ACIS modeling kernel) and they both worked perfectly. (see image 02 and 05)

There are well over 20 industry CAD file formats supported. Kernel formats are supported like SAT and ASAT (ACIS). Key 3D modelers are supported like Rhino, 3DS, and SketchUp. Other key formats are DGN (Microstation), DWF, STEP, STL, and WRZ (VRML Worlds). A complete list can be found here.

TurboViewer Pro 2 also supports layout support (paper space versus model space), custom perspectives, AutoCAD HSX font support, TrueType fonts support and now tactile sound feedback in the user interface (UI).

Closing Comments

TurboViewer Pro 2.0 is a very strong product because it is tightly defined around its market goals. It is a viewer, not a CAD drawing application or markup application. As such it is focused around the needs of viewing CAD models in the field…ideally on an iPad. There is a direct usefulness to this purpose in architecture, engineering and construction, as well as many other CAD-based industries.

We love the ability to go to pre-set views. However, in exploring the Pro-only feature of “perspective” views we wished we could save particular views and name them for later reuse. We also wished that there was “perspective correction” based views capability, so that all verticals remain vertical while zooming around with the model in perspective mode. CAD programs that allow you to fly-around (fly-through) have this ability and it simply keeps the horizon level. Such a feature in the next version would be desirable. (see image 05)

If you are a CAD user with an iPad and you are interested in bringing your CAD drawings and models with you into meetings or into the field, then IMSI/Design‘s TurboViewer Pro 2.0 is a must app to test out. You can get the gist of it by downloading and using the free TurboViewer app.

Pros: very fast and elegant 2D/3D CAD file viewing application for Apple iOS platform, ideal for the iPad-toting professional or student; intuitive interface, nice icons; support for well over 20 industry CAD file formats besides Autodesk AutoCAD files, plus PDF; nice visual options for viewing models in particular, including X-ray mode; saved views, and custom perspective options; great price and value.

Cons: there are no negative comments about this application. We would however like to see more perspective control (hold horizon level or perspective correction) during 3D navigation and possible navigation options in the future. No ability to save views within application itself.

Advice: IMSI TurboViewer Pro is a fantastic application for those who wish or need to view CAD files in the field. From hidden line mode to shaded OpenGL-ES to X-ray mode, all view styles look great and react quickly to Multi-touch gesture controls. This is the CAD viewing app on tablets that others much chase.

Cost: 24.USD from Apple iTunes App Store for TurboViewer Pro, 6.99.USD for TurboViewer X (which is an ad-less version of the free app) and TurboViewer which is free itself. Each version adds features, all of them are equally quick viewers.

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