First Look: Freeform vector drawing app for iPad

The interesting part of being a software reviewer in the early days of the iPad platform is that sometimes you test applications that show a lot of promise and are among the first of their genre in the App Store. Freeform (US$4.99), a vector drawing app for the iPad platform from Stunt Software, falls into this class of app. It's probably the best app of its type right now, and the developer is working on making changes to the app to make it even more useful to iPad users.

For those of you who aren't familiar with vector drawing applications, they are used to place and color shapes on a background, and usually provide a way to add text labels. In other words, for creating a diagram of some sort, they work well -- but they aren't the type of app that you'd want to use for freehand sketching.

I had the opportunity to try out Freeform, and while it's a good start at a powerful iPad drawing app, it still has some shortcomings that the developer is aware of and is planning on resolving. If this review piques your interest, you may wish to purchase the app soon, as the app price is currently listed as an "introductory price." Read on for more comments and screenshots of Freeform in action.

Launching Freeform brings you straight into a blank page. There's a simple toggle button for turning on and off a grid. At this time, you cannot have items snap to the grid, so it exists only for manual alignment. Along the left and top sides of the display are a set of icons:

The finger is used to select items, either singly (by tapping on them) or in groups (by dragging a box around more than one object). The circle icon is used to draw circles or ovals, which is accomplished by dragging a finger across the iPad screen until the circle is as large as you desire. The next icon draws squares or rectangles, and the triangular icon is used for drawing multi-sided shapes. Initially, the shape is a pentagon, which I thought was a bit odd. There was no indication of how to create a triangle or any other object, so I resorted to asking the developer. It turns out that another icon (showing three dots) appears when you select a multi-sided shape, and when you tap on this a slider appears that is used to change the number of sides on the object. Your shapes can have anywhere from 3 (a triangle) to 16 sides (a hexadecagon).

The next icon down is used to draw star shapes. Once again, the three-dotted icon is used to customize your star, either the number of points (once again between 3 and 16) or the point angle. There's a straight line tool, as well as a tool for drawing free-form lines.

Below the various drawing tools is a fill tool, which has a user-definable palette of up to 24 fills. A standard color picker lets you choose your color. There's a slider to adjust the opacity of the fill, as well one for adjusting intensity. Below the fill tool there's a stroke tool, used to define the attributes of lines or shape borders. Once again, you can choose the color, opacity, and intensity, and there are additional sliders for adjusting the width of your line or creating a dashed line. You can save up to 24 different line strokes for future use.

Along the top of the display is a different set of tools. From left to right in the screenshot above, the first is used to group or ungroup objects. To group objects, you drag a box to surround them, and then tap the group icon. To ungroup, select the grouped objects and then tap the group icon. The next icon is a Bezier curve tool, and it can be used to either adjust points on a free-form curve or a shape that has been drawn by Freeform.

Drawing tools always provide layering, in that any object can be place in front of or in back of another. The next two icons are used to move an object forward or backward. Finally, there are a set of 8 automatic alignment icons that are used to align drawn objects. By selecting objects and then tapping one of the icons, you can align them by their tops, centers, or bottoms, or left or right sides.

There is a multiple-level undo/redo feature in Freeform, which is handy if you make a mistake while manipulating a drawn object. Finally, Freeform provides sharing by allowing you to either add your drawing to the Photos library or email it as a PDF, PNG, or JPG file.

The traditional iPad gestures are used for zooming in or out, and you can reset the zoom to 100% with a double-tap. A two-finger drag pans around the drawing canvas, while a one-finger drag is used to create objects, select multiple objects, or move selected objects. A double-tap or tap and hold on an object brings up a dialog for cutting, copying, pasting, deleting, or duplicating an object. Finally, a two-finger rotate is used to rotate selected objects.

There are a couple of things that are missing that would make Freeform much better. For example, I'd like to be able to name and/or time stamp my drawings. There's no way of adding text to drawings, nor can you do gradient fills. I sometimes like to give objects "depth" by adding a shadow to them. That's not possible in Freeform. Strangely enough, many of these capabilities are available in a vector drawing program you may already have -- Pages, Keynote, or Numbers for iPad. All of those Apple applications have a surprisingly powerful vector drawing tool built into them, and you can add text, do gradient fills, and add shadows.

Developer Dan Messing noted that a new version of Freeform has been submitted to the App Store, with these changes:

• Improved path creation - it is now more similar to programs like illustrator - you can still draw a path by simply dragging your finger, but now you can create curves by clicking once to start the path, then clicking and dragging to control the next point's curve handles while creating the path.

• Boolean operations - again similar to what might be found in a desktop vector editing program. For example, you can create a pack-man shape from overlapping a triangle on a circle and pressing the "subtract" boolean operation button.

• Ability to modify point types - for example, changing a smooth curve point into a sharp point with no control handles and visa versa

• Ability to add and remove points on a path

• Ability to add gradients as fills for objects

• Ability to add drop shadows to objects (not sure if this one will make the final cut just for this version just yet)

• Minor bug fixes.

Although Freeform 1.1 won't have the text feature that would be so useful, it's still an excellent drawing app for iPad. If you need a drawing tool but don't want to purchase the more expensive iWorks apps, Freeform can definitely provide you with most of the capabilities you'll want. The rest of those capabilities should be here shortly.

Be sure to check out the gallery below for more shots of Freeform in action.

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