[Drawkit] DrawKit/Ortelius on the iPhone

[Brad Larson]

On Jul 5, 2008, at 7:02 PM, Uli Kusterer wrote:

>
> On 05.07.2008, at 22:07, Dick Applebaum wrote:
>> DrawKit, in general, and Ortelius, in particular would seem to be  
>> natural apps for the iPhone (and future mobile devices Apple offers).
>>
>> I am not suggesting that a full drawing or mapping app needs to be  
>> ported to the iPhone.
>>
>> Rather, the ability to display/manipulat drawings that are created  
>> elsewhere.
>
>
> Apart from the fact that at least my fingers are much too big to do  
> anything resembling image manipulation, there are technical reasons  
> that make me think DrawKit will probably not port to the iPhone that  
> easily.
>
> Of course, considering anyone who knows for sure about details of  
> the iPhone is under a Non-Disclosure-Agreement, you'll probably have  
> to wait for a detailed analysis on how well DrawKit would or would  
> not port until the iPhone SDK goes final.
>
> Cheers,
> -- Uli Kusterer
> "The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
> http://www.zathras.de
>
>

I can't be more specific, due to NDA, but I just submitted an iPhone  
application (an open source 3D molecular modeler) for consideration  
for the App Store and I can tell you that it would be a technical  
challenge to bring across the framework as it's currently designed to  
the iPhone.

That said, it is possible.  A good first step might be to leverage  
Core Animation within the framework and do more in terms of CALayers  
instead of NSViews, something I might take a look at soon.

Now that I think about it, Ortelius would be a nice fit with the  
iPhone 3G's GPS capabilities.  You could have it record a hiking path  
as you walk or roads as you drive and store them as vectors for  
manipulation on a Mac client program.  Maps could be drawn up on the  
Mac and synced with the iPhone client or downloaded directly by the  
client.

Even James's musical notation application might port across well to  
the limited interaction / view area of the iPhone / iPod Touch.

______________________
Brad Larson
SonoPlot, Inc.
3030 Laura Lane, Suite 120
Middleton, WI 53562