By Todd Ogasawara on September 28, 2009 4:45 AM

Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile & MobileX (fee & free versions): Ultimate iPhone Doodle App?

Autodesk (of AutoCAD fame) released a $2.99 sketching app for the iPhone and iPod touch recently…

I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend a whole $2.99 (yes, I am the last of the big time spenders) to try it out. So, I was happy to find Autodesk also released a free version (fewer layers, preset brushes, etc.)…

Autodesk SketchBook MobileX (Express)

So, I downloaded and installed it my iPod touch and took it for a spin. Doodling with my fingertip was a bit tricky since I couldn’t see the line being draw under my finger (the line is much thinner than my fingertip). However, I found that it was a bit easier if I zoomed in a lot. This, of course, meant I had to move around the canvas that now extended way outside of my screen boudaries. Since moving a single fingertip is the drawing mode, the trick to moving around the canvas is using two fingertips instead of the usual one finger gesture.

One of SketchBook’s features is the ability to import an existing photo to use as a starting point. I used the photo below as my starting point…

You can see the result of my first photo-doodle with Sketchbook below…

A SketchBook doodle (my term, btw, not Autodesk’s) can be saved back into the iPod touch or iPhone’s photo album. That’s how I exported my doodle to incorporate into this blog item.

The only annoying thing I found in Autodesk’s SketchBook MobileX is that it doesn’t import landscape mode photos as a full screen. It brought in the photo as a tiny image bordered by large white spaces above and below it. You can get an idea of the issue by the screenshot above and the amount of white space between the paragraph surrounding it here. If this little issue gets cleared up in the update, I may actually spend $2.99 to buy the app. It looks like a good little time-consumer when I’m forced to wait around for something (dentist visit, etc.).