Morpholio Trace - Sketch CAD Reviews

by Caitiekay

I think MorpholioTrace is way over rated. It’s really just a sketching app, nothing you can do any precision with, and Procreate is FAR BETTER to sketch with.
Don’t expect any kind of precision measuring or drawing detail. Zooming in is terribly pixelated. The perspective tool is so frustrating due to lack of detail and raster images. Lines don’t snap so your perspective lines can be way off. With perspective turned on the apple pencil has serious parallax and lag. If zoomed in even a little the pencil won’t draw or draws on the wrong projection line while in perspective. This is completely unacceptable and makes the perspective function useless for anything other than very rough concept sketching. Procreate’s perspective is much better.
Layers are really frustrating; you can’t merge layers or copy selections to new layers, if you want to draw on a lower layer you have to turn off the ones above rather than select the lower level. If you want a higher resolution zoomed in, you have to create a new layer; but then you can’t merge layers, so you end up with tons of layers.

by Seekertrt

Been using MorpholioTrace for several months now. Although it’s great to sketch to scale that’s pretty much were it stops. it lacks many basic features, such as merging layers, copying between layers and files. Recently tried the new smart hatch tool for areas and the writes over every single layer rendering them useless. The hatches look cool but man they ruined my drawing. I now have to recreate an entire new drawing because of this and the inability to copy certain layers across into a new file.
Honestly am quite disappointed. After much hype and fancy graphics this is still more of a beta, and very much frustrating. For its price, it is expensive. Come to think of it, from all the lack of basic features, and the very bad area fill pattern tool, it’s cost me a lot more in wasted time. Definitely not meant for schematic and professional presentation. Best to export a basic sketch into Adobe products.

by Taylorzor

Edited review from 2 to 3 stars. This is a raster based product, so don’t expect the crispness and retro-editability of other software like the Concepts app. Requires careful layer management in a photoshop style of working, which is complicated by the fact that the layers are designed to act like trace sheets. So if you hit the edge of the trace sheet your line might get pushed to a different layer. I’m cool with the trace sheets concept, it should really be an unlimited canvas though. Then again, big vector apps can get bogged down by large PDF’s and infinite canvases and MorpholioTrace wont. Once you get past the learning curve MorpholioTrace starts to shine.

Still, while MorpholioTrace can be useful, it has some other quirks that I hope the developer polishes out. For example - the pen tool combined with the ruler is perfect for drafting crisp lines. But the eraser tool does not work with the ruler. So you can draw a straight line, but you can’t erase a straight line. I suppose you could use a stencil to get around this issue.

Also, no ability to put in dimensions? This is the one missing feature that I am scratching my head over.

Finally, avoid the undo button. It’s slow and buggy. Just use the eraser. Despite the issues, it’s very much worth learning.

by MODE4 Architecture

As an architect, I use MorpholioTrace all the time; multiple times daily. It’s generally great, but it does has one significant and highly annoying flaw. Morpholio will separate drawing sets into multiple individual sheets, requiring the user to close one drawing sheet to open another. The back-and-forth process has become so frustrating that I found myself searching for a replacement app today. Figured I should voice my complaint to the developers and give them a chance to correct the issue....or, if I am doing something wrong, please tell me.

I can imagine two changes that would improve the product greatly:

1. The best solution I would imagine, would be to allow for multiple drawings to be open at one time on the tablet screen, the way I would lay out my sketches on an actual physical desktop, laying pieces of trace over each drawing, with the ability to transfer the trace and overlay onto other drawings.

2. Supply the option to create a continuous scrollable document that includes all sheets selected, similar to an Adobe PDF.

Again, this is a very good app, but has some annoying limitations. My recommendation would be to survey architects and other designers who use your product to better understand how best to serve the design community....

by Samhunt17

I am an architect and have used MorpholioTrace daily for over a year. Obviously, if I have done so I enjoy MorpholioTrace and overall it is very useful. However, I have become less and less tolerable of all of its faults. As a raster based sketching app it lacks some basic features such as cropping/cutting/duplicating/moving portions of sheets. It is like real trace sketching but it should be even more like photoshop in my opinion. The biggest disappointment is the lack of development. Features have been requested for a long time and some have been “coming soon” for years. Also, support communication is three times what is typical. Last time I hand an inquiry during a time crunch it took them 15 days to respond, which in my opinion is unacceptable.

by Tylerncc

I’m a 20+ year design professional and I recently decided to reevaluate my design apps to see if I could improve my digital workflow while doing planning and design work. I very quickly realized that MorpholioTrace would be my primary tool for design on my iPad. Very powerful, clearly designed by people who understand how designers think, and the instructional videos get you up to speed quickly. Only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that there is one particular function it needs for my workflow that would probably a simple addition. The good news is that it’s a small team and they’re actually pretty responsive with support and are open to update ideas, so hopefully soon enough it will be actually perfect for me!

by User363

MorpholioTrace looks really beautiful and has some great tools.
I tried the free version to see if it would work to markup pdf drawings. I simply cannot import a pdf at a decent quality and it is definitely not anything I would want to share with a client. I have tried imported drawings printed at 1200 dpi. I don’t know if this is a limitation of the free version and if the paid versions import pdf drawing at full quality? Anyway, I was sad about trying MorpholioTrace as I was excited from the reviews and tutorials.

Update: Although I cannot import PDF drawings at full quality, the drawing tools allow to quickly sketch floor plan layouts to scale. My favorite tool is turning on the ruler and having it on the side of the screen. I can quickly draw walls in ortho mode anywhere on screen, which works better than concepts and procreate drawing assist. I’m not entirely sold on the layer management.

by Str8UpJack

I am a cabinet maker / woodworker. My primary use of Trace is to snap an AR image at the customers house and then sketch onto the image the ideas we discussed. It helps me plan out the project and let’s them see exactly how the project will look in their space. It’s really great.

The star I knocked off was because there are some quirky errors that can happen from time to time. I just experienced one such error that ruined my AR photo so I can not work on my project unless I return to the clients house to take the image again. There are also some issues with MorpholioTrace not properly displaying thumbnails of your projects so if you don’t remember to name them it might be hard to find what you’re looking for.

( this should be a 5 star app and with some refinement I am sure it will get there)

by LandshaperStudio

I own a landscape design and archviz studio and we started using morpholio when we switched over from Microsoft’s Surface Pro to the iPad Pro for drawing/illustrating. We played around with several different apps until we landed on morpholio. Being able to produce scaled drawings on the go has been a huge game changer. We’ve become 100% paperless since and morpholio is a pillar for our workflow and collaboration with other companies/designers around the country all while maintaining the style we built on pen and paper. Love MorpholioTrace and highly recommend.

by $ketcher0ne

Morpholio Trace is an amazing app that I’ve integrated into my everyday workflow. Being an architectural designer I am constantly asked to quickly produce visual ideas to help communicate ideas to clients and the pubic. Morpholio has allowed me to create repeatable styles, that in turn, has allow me to do even more professionally with MorpholioTrace . The power in it for me is the simple yet powerful tools and being able to easily switch between them, almost like using my analogy drawing tools. The Multi PDF importer is one of my favorite features, and being able to swap out individual background pages and update sketches is a huge time saver. In my opinion a lot of effort and thought has been given to how people think while using MorpholioTrace , it’s very intuitive. The subscription is also worth it in my option for all the features. Although I’m a millennial, I’ve had a lot of old school training in the architecture profession and Morpholio Trace allows me to think through that processes I’ve developed, while having the power of undo and digital sketching.

by CaptBee

Trace is an eye-opener and awesome performer! I downloaded on my iPhone just to give it a try so as to get the feel of the usefulness of this lean (and mean, in a good way) app. Was I ever amazed with its capabilities, it did all that I asked of it and did it in a field environment that was less than ideal. Trace just kept raising the bar for me as if to challenge me to do even more with it - and I did. I am now convinced that this nimble standout software can meet all my design and presentation requirements for my fast paced small projects - and best of all, it’s just FUN to use! So, get it, try it and you’ll be addicted to Morpholio’s Trace just like me - it works simply to impress and then some.

by Nealk99

As a landscape architect and planner, I’ve tried every drawing program for the iPad: procreate, sketchbook pro, concepts, adobe sketch, etc. all are good for artists but none of them duplicated the environment of drawing and sketching that architects, landscape architects, and planners need. Morpholio Trace is IT! Incredibly intuitive and all the right tools to create layers, scale, templates, import images and maps, render, create perspective sketches, it’s all there. This is currently the only program I use now to create plans and sketches for clients. Plus, these guys constantly innovate new tools and the support is phenomenal. As a design professional, I give Morpholio Trace my highest recommendation and I use it daily.

by Tb Design Build

I own a design-build firm, so my team and I spend time both conceptualizing/developing designs as well as redlining plans. MorpholioTrace so quickly integrated itself as an essential tool for us. Marking up plans is easy, though we did have issues at first with the legibility of our markup upon export but just had to learn a few tricks. Equally as important, sketching over massing or just doodling is as simple or complex/refined as you want it to be. One of the most impressive things though is the customer support. I recently had a function I couldn’t get to work so I reached out. To my surprise a member of the team emailed me back shortly, conversed with me about the tool that had been removed, asked my opinion about reinstating it, and later even followed up just to let me know that an update was coming out that would restore what I was looking for. It was quite refreshing to talk to a member of the team who cared about the outcome instead of simply navigating some automated system of troubleshooting. Five stars guys, keep it up!

by SF Paper Hound

Im an architect who’s been using digital drawing /modeling tools for way too many years. I find Trace one of the most clever and useful programs (apps) I’ve ever used. The simple elegance with which Morpholio has recreated the intuitive and haptic experience of drawing is stunning. As someone who travels frequently the ability to draw to scale in a mode that echoes the free workflow of layering trace on trace has made my plane time my most valuable time.
Ive been using Trace for a few years now so have Ive also seen how well tended MorpholioTrace has been. Improvement after improvement have made Trace even more useful and robust while not losing the simple elegance of the original.
Trace is simply amazing. Ive tested many, many drawing apps available for Ipad and nothing comes close to Trace.

by Mikezots

No, it’s not “real” CAD: it’s raster based, for one thing. But then, this isn’t something I use for production. I create base plans with a laser and another iPad app, then import this as a base plan into Trace. From there, it’s like using trace paper: sketch out concepts, refine, illustrate, label and export. Plus there’s a nifty perspective drawing tool that you can use over a site photo. At the end, the client gets an annotated PDF file showing a concept, complete with annotations.

Shortcomings:
- The export function could use some form of layer sets to export plan and sketches without having to go back and turn off/on layers.
- blending modes for imported images and paper styles, especially multiply with Kraft paper and grid textures
- As far as I know, you can’t control page layout, and sometimes MorpholioTrace gets it wrong: vertical plan in horizontal layout with too much blank space on the page. There are workarounds, but it would be wonderful if these things were built-in. You can’t crop base images to control document aspect ratio or eliminate unwanted parts of a base plan, at least not in-app. Workaround: import pdf into page layout app and fix, so can’t do on iPad.

by Φιλέλληνα

I use Morpholio Trace for archaeological illustration. This involves, for me, drawing with precision atypical objects that are often damaged. The ability to do precise scaling in millimeters is one of the most useful features of this product. I can easily proof the dimensions of my drawing against the object. Also, Trace, unlike Adobe Illustrator, isn’t a vector program so that the objects I draw do not have that computer-generated, super-smooth look. The line reflects the movement of the hand, bringing it closer in appearance to traditional archaeological illustrations. Until recently, archaeological illustrations were done my hand, first in pencil, then in ink, before they were scanned to a file at high resolution. Trace allows me to create a high resolution file immediately, especially when I use the 12.9” version.

by Supersl1m

I was skeptical to be honest but I really needed an app/ program that could do if not all most and in this case about 85% which worked for me most of MorpholioTrace is skill based and imagination based how good you are to imagin the world and be on its on you skill base is using the tools and new innovative was to use a tool for one thing the to make something completely different . The only bad thing was using the 3D thing like the model the view with the 3 images in 3D , they did not have a 3D program or way of making a 3D model to then add so I had to opt out to us a third party which was lame and not compatible with trace , or it was super basic and I had to pay a rediculous amount for subscription so if they "trace" would have included this or added it with the premium version it would have been cool any ways great app thanx !

by DJF_IS

I enjoy Trace on my iPad Pro (w/ Apple Pencil) as well as other programs like Concepts, and AutoDesk’s SketchBook, but none support multiple pages. As an artist and product designer, I digitally sketch all the time and import photos, renderings, and maps, BUT having to create a new “Project” for every sketch is very cumbersome, time-consuming, and slows down my workflow. To me, a single sketch with layers isn’t a “Project.” A project typically has many “Pages” or “Drawings.” And while I use Morpholio Journal for day-to-day notes/sketching as well, it has very limited tools. Ideally, I’d like Trace and Journal combined, while still allowing both to act as their own stand-alone products. Imagine being able to flip through multiple pages in Trace, then be able to flatten and export the entire set of pages as a PDF to send to clients and consultants! It would REALLY be powerful. I’d use it all the time. Maybe one day. Until then, each sketch is considered a single “Project.”

by Formatt

For the record, I’m a Landscape Architect and Planner. I’ve completely incorporated it into my daily workflow, now that working out of the office has become somewhat difficult (COVID-19). After this has come to pass, not sure I’d go back to actual trace and scales, unless necessary... that’s how well this works. Customer service (Joey) is outstanding! Assisted with a fairly significant issue within hours (I hadn’t updated my OS to the latest). Offered suggestions and they got back to immediately with dialog regarding it. Two items I’m hoping for improvement on: 1. Better ability for scaling PDF exports. The current scales are fairly limited. CS said they’re already working on this and to keep an eye out. 2. I’d like to see a pencil tool. It currently has technical pens, sharpies, markers, etc., even chalk... but having a drawing tool that reflects just a simple colored pencil, would be awesome. Other than those two items, it’s perfect IF you use it for the way it was intended.

by Luis And Ric

Wow.....It has been 2 years since I started using Morpholio Trace and I can’t believe I never shared a review! MorpholioTrace was created by architects looking for a natural way to use a tablet the same way we use tracing paper while sketching. Obviously, the physical differences between drawing on paper and glass are infinite but I think Morpholio Trace does an outstanding job on trying to replicate the way architects and designers communicate their ideas through sketching.

Like any other app, at first, you need to figure out how it works, but once you get to it, MorpholioTrace becomes really simple to use. The use of layers like tracing paper and the capability to scale your sketches, makes Morpholio Trace a powerful tool for meetings with clients where you can make changes in real time.

I know you cannot replace paper and pencil with a tablet and a stylus yet, but I think you can’t stop technology and Morpholio Trace makes the transition easier and more natural when it comes to sketching.

by Sweetviolet79

I’m not an architect but I still wanted a simple app to help me plan a room in a small apartment. I thought this would let me rough sketch a scaled-down room, input measurements for furniture I own & find the most efficient layout. If this sounds familiar, move along. This horrid app is not user-friendly... unless you’re perhaps, a professional architect already familiar with similar programs. There are no instructions for use and no help tools. I tried to figure it out on my own. I used the ruler tool to draw a straight line (aka a wall), in trying to find out how to reposition the ruler to form a 90 degree corner, the ruler tool disappeared and tapping on the ruler tool button does not bring it back.
MorpholioTrace developer should at least have included some sort of help section or include some sort of hint that this isn’t geared towards the average Jane/Joe just trying to map out a single room.

by JAL100000000

Interesting idea and examples look good, but tools are difficult to be accurate with, scale function is twitchy, drawing tools while them seem to be mimics of real tools do not perform like real markers (dry markers only are offered) , washes or pencils. The AR tool is still something I am trying to figure out what to use it on. The pen tools work well, except with very fine lines which make the line look sketchy not like a fine pen. If you want to perform a blended marker wash - the tool only seems to do dry markers. I work on large projects so the screen gets filled with the dense floor plan which by definition has a hard time making fine lines. So, I have to break the floor plan into sections to get enough resolution to use the tools as intended. If you work on different kinds of projects you Might not encounter the same issues. I encourage to look at the examples, they are all small projects.

by AjBezark

This is a nice app, with nifty features that make it easy to generate professional architectural-style sketches. BUT... in order to access anything beyond the most basic features, Morpholio requires a monthly/yearly subscription. I don’t mind paying a one-time in-app fee for “pro” features, but subscription software smacks of pure greed. There are certain subscription-based services that make sense: streaming video, for instance, burdens the developer with ongoing costs, so it’s fair that users support that cost. But Morpholio isn’t offering anything in exchange for their subscription other than the right to use their standalone app. This isn’t a trend I want to encourage, so I won’t be using Trace.

by G-man711

I’m an absolute novice when it comes to design. I am sure MorpholioTrace is great if that is your niche. All I want to do is have an app to easily draw possible renovations in my home. Sure I could take the time to learn the tools provided in MorpholioTrace . It might be just want I need. But in order to pay a monthly subscription to use all the features is greedy. For some it might be worth it. It’s not for me. Why not a flat fee up front?

A pencil and paper would actually be cheaper and easier to use.

An electronic app is nice if you don’t want to waste resources and storage space. I guess it would also help you better visualize a 3D environment.

by Ounrg Kundve

First off, I am not an architect, but I work in the construction field and have to work with architects a lot. That being said, MorpholioTrace is definitely designed by architects. You can tell by the focus on the art rather than precision. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If MorpholioTrace had the ability to draw lines from typed in lengths, snap dimensions and angles, it would be perfect. The sample plan is a fine example, there is no actionable info on the whole drawing, it covers the gap between client and construction plans, no dimensions or angles called out. I am still giving MorpholioTrace a better than average star count because it is a good app, just be aware that it is geared towards concept design more than anything that is accurate.

by Mdlgto2

This was my untold want...it was a joy to find trace. It is a joy to use. As a landscape designer I was craving a way to bring life to cad drawings as well as a way to quickly and elegantly propose concepts to clients using cad files. morholio trace does both. I just got it yesterday and already feel I can do the above. It is an intuitive and beautiful app. Cut and copy functions would be great..as some critiques have noted. Critiques wishing it were a vector graphic program are unclear on the concept.

Note, really helpful to have as big a screen as possible, for me, it made springing for the 12.9” iPad Pro a no brainer.

by JHM89

4.5 Stars - Very good, incredibly powerful and practical. Can make the lead portion of the design process very efficient. While MorpholioTrace continues to improve (the AR additions with iPhone X are great!), there are still a few things that can be done. The file access between Trace in your phone and that on your iPad is not fully functional. How about taking a layer from one project and moving it over to another project? In spite of these comments, highly recommended for any Design Lead who is serious about making the creative process productive and effective!

by Campana Architects

I have been using Morpholio for two years and I must say it has certainly provided me with a platform to enhance my firms design process. I typically use MorpholioTrace during schematic design but I have increasingly been using it further down the line. For instance, it is great for marking up drawings for revisions or reviewing shop drawings and emailing them directly to the GC instead of scanning first. So so so so efficient!
I would love to share a schematic sketch for our most recent project but I’m not sure I can do it here.

by AZarchitekts

As an architect, this is one of my favorite tools now. Granted, nothing will replace pen and paper but for what it is, it is the best tool ever to iterate designs. It has a small learning curve but overall a very very intuitive program to design with day to day, whether it be a small landscape project, or a large mixed use building, the possibilities are endless. Custom create stencils with a touch of a button, 1,2,3 point perspective tools that help incredibly, and allows for you to use a plethora of layers. The exported files are of beautiful quality and its just super helpful tool when dealing with clients, having discussions, and/or just for play.