
Show HN: Sketchology - mickrobk
http://www.sketchologyapp.com/
======
seanMeverett
Don't listen to the naysayers. You've created something simple, elegant, and
instantly understandable. In a world where we're constantly bombarded with
technical discussions of whiz-bang jetpacks, an app like this turns the corner
into the basics of what can be done with one simple mechanic: infinite zoom.

I, for one, downloaded it because I want to take notes on my iPad, but the
resolution isn't built for that with a stylus. Now I can take sketch notes,
written notes, and doodle to my hearts desire.

Kudos on taking the leap a few years back and kudos on building something
"featureless".

Monetization will always be your biggest hurdle. The sure bet that I've found,
and you can look no further than Candy Crush for this mechanic, is to get
someone as close as possible to the end of what they want to do and if they
can't do it in that amount of time/moves/etc, they have to pay to get one more
move/life. How that integrates with a "drawing" app will require time and
thought.

~~~
jmelloy
This is the iPad app I've wanted to build. Nice work.

------
honzzz
It would be nice to indicate in a title that the link is only useful for
people with specific platform. It's kind of disappointing to go there and find
out I cannot try it because I don't have that kind of device. Something like
"Show HN: Sketchology [iOS]" or "The thing [Android]" or something like that
could be helpful.

~~~
chrisdevereux
Not useful doesn't imply not interesting.

Having the 'Show HN' posts all tagged with platforms would sorta make me feel
like I'm in a supermarket, skipping past the isles containing stuff I'm not
going to walk out with.

~~~
honzzz
Why all? My estimate is that most of them are web apps, mobile apps are often
at least Android/iOS, I would say that those tags I proposed would be needed
quite rarely. And it's not like I am demanding it, it was just a proposal to
see whether others would like or not - just my $0.02 - you certainly raise a
valid point, we certainly do not want to complicate things too much.

------
alex_c
Very, very cool. It "feels" great to use it - the lines look smooth and
satisfying to draw. I can see this being a lot of fun to use for random
doodling. The simplicity is also great - it does exactly what it needs to, and
no more.

Only one problem: I have zero artistic talent or ability. I've often wanted to
start practicing drawing, but it was never THAT high a priority, and I never
put in the effort to get a pad, pencils, start carrying them around with me,
etc. An app like this can make it close to zero effort to get started and to
doodle something every day.

Now there's still the problem of guidance or knowing where to start. Give me
something like daily challenges or tutorials - can range from something as
simple as "here's a picture of a cat, draw it" to more advanced animated
tutorials - and I could see myself getting hooked. I would not mind paying for
"content" or for a monthly subscription under this model.

~~~
mickrobk
Having recently taught myself to draw (somewhat) I know where you're coming
from. From a design perspective this is a super challenging problem though.

I actually spent a while trying to come up with an introduction to the app
that would do a drawing tutorial of sorts. (Along the lines of
[http://www.drawastickman.com/episode1](http://www.drawastickman.com/episode1))
- but the line between the app telling you what to do and guiding you is very
thin, especially in content creation software. In the end I decided that it
was best to try and build motivation and a personal connection through more
subdued means, and that that method would be "truer" and deeper as well.

This is the same reasoning behind not having sample artwork within the
program, not even as a tutorial. I didn't want people to open it up and see
anything that they had not chosen to create.

I don't know what the proper solution to what you're asking would be - I want
it to exist in theory, but I can't convince myself that it would be good in
practice.

~~~
alex_c
Yeah, I understand what you mean - the devil is in the details.

There are two possible kinds of guidance, I think. One would be actual
tutorials - draw a circle, the circle becomes the head, etc. - with the goal
of teaching technique and building up skill.

The second would be aimed more at motivation and inspiration - getting people
to draw _something_ every day, no matter what their technique is or how good
they are. Maybe it's a "Seinfeld calendar"-like nudge to draw every day, maybe
it's a "daily challenge" or "idea of the day" for various skill levels.

Easy to say, of course, but much tougher to get it right in practice,
especially with the level of simplicity and elegance you have right now. Maybe
it's a completely separate app, but I think there's a lot of potential there
if someone can get it right.

------
flyosity
This looks like a really wonderful app, but the icon needs a lot of work.
Maybe export a beautiful, colorful world as the icon and have it look sort of
abstract? A big ugly S is something I really don't want on my home screen, to
be completely honest.

~~~
mickrobk
Appreciate the feedback - at the very least though it's better than the
development version:

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/sketchologyapp/static/img/old-
icon.p...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/sketchologyapp/static/img/old-icon.png)

~~~
gnufied
Does it require any special pen or works with hand? Looks pretty sweet btw.

~~~
wahnfrieden
No iOS apps require a special pen.

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taejo
> Previously the domain of thousand-dollar tools

Or Inkscape

~~~
nulagrithom
Inkscape is on iOS?

~~~
sp332
Thousand-dollar tools are on iOS?

~~~
ye
Ironically, the highest possible price for an iOS app is $999.99

------
AlexDanger
Well done. After a couple of minutes playing with it i see your app has
nuggets of subtle UX brilliance. I think my favourite is the eraser and how it
responds when you start erasing faster....

Also very alluring marketing.

Best of luck, I hope you do well, you clearly have vision. Your app made me
smile.

------
cocoflunchy
Looks awesome! And it's free? I will definitely check it out at work when I
have an iPad around.

~~~
mickrobk
It's free to download and use, though to unlock all the tools (about 50% come
standard) there's a one time IAP for $5

~~~
RBerenguel
Another app to get me to save for a new iPad (still 1)

~~~
mickrobk
Definitely :) - Even getting this to run on the iPad 3 was a lengthy adventure
in profiling. I wish I could have hit the 1, but it just wasn't meant to be.

~~~
RBerenguel
Yeah, no problem. I can't even update SmartGo Kifu, so...

------
mortenjorck
This is probably outside your vision for the product, but adding a text box
tool would transform this into a pretty amazing notebook app. All the type-
and-draw apps I've used are locked into the physical concept of a page, and
combining a ZUI with art tools _and_ text would be a delightfully organic way
to take notes, build loose wireframes, or annotate concept sketches.

------
jongold
This looks excellent - as a designer my brain has always worked better with
infinite canvases like Illustrator/Sketch.app; I feel really constrained by
Photoshop etc. Great stuff.

~~~
wingerlang
Sketch.app is just great, this was probably the first app I instantly bought
when the trial ended.

------
gabriel34
Are there Android and Windows Phone ports on the horizon? This App would pair
up nicely with active digitizers such as Samsung's S-pen and Surface Pro's pen
input.

On a more skeptical note, how does it compares with Evernote's Skitch and
Omnigraffle?

------
andrew_gardener
So does the tool just abstract pixels or is it using Vectors? If it is
vectors, what kinds of tools does it offer for exporting?

Note that I'm not into designing at all but I might suggest this to a friend
for their projects

~~~
mickrobk
It's fully vector but you cannot export to SVG or any other open formats due
to the performance difference between Sketchology and other vector apps. (More
than 100x even against x86 hardware.)

You can export to web[0], which creates a zoomable raster copy of the drawing,
but this is obviously limited to getting an editable vector copy.

[0] For example:
[http://www.sketchologyapp.com/u/sketchology/18](http://www.sketchologyapp.com/u/sketchology/18)

~~~
unwind
Due to the what? It's not up to the application to decide if its data is
useful in other applications or not, that's just ... silly lock-in talk. Quite
an annoying attitude, if that's representative.

Luckily I a) can't draw and b) don't have an iPad so I'm not a lost customer.

~~~
mickrobk
Well no, I could never say that there isn't tremendous benefit to being able
to use multiple tools in a workflow and have control of your data.

Lack of SVG export isn't due to wanting lock in, or even a question of
priorities. I spent considerable time working with all the leading vector
drawing programs and investigating their performance. The simple fact was that
it couldn't work well. Even trivial drawings (20 lines) done with the pencil
tool in Sketchology would cause Illustrator to lock up for hours and consume
all available memory. Larger drawings would fail to open altogether.

Ultimately I think offering the feature would have been extremely misleading
and frustrating for people. I'd rather cut a feature than ship a bad
experience.

~~~
dublinben
That sounds like a problem with your app, not theirs. There's no reason why a
compliant SVG with only 20 lines shouldn't be easily compatible with any
vector drawing program.

~~~
noir_lord
Inkscape which uses SVG as it's "internal" format often chokes on seemingly
"simple" svg files (which when you look into it have thousands of points on a
simple curve).

Often these have been generated by another SVG tool, support another tools
idiocy for whatever marginal gain he might make is maybe why he doesn't want
to do it.

------
incision
Looks very neat, I'm disappointed that's it's apparently iPad only. I'd love
to give it a try next to Sketchbook Ink [0] on my Android devices.

Though, I have to say, I'm growing really weary of dramatic copy that insists
on telling me how "beautiful" (4x) everything is.

0:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adsk.sketc...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adsk.sketchbookink_gen&hl=en)

------
jamesbritt
Folks on Android might want to check out ScribMaster:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.thoster.no...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.thoster.noteshare&hl=en)

Can't say how it compares to Sketcholgy (not being in the target audience) but
it exports and imports SVG and also has what seems to be near infinite
zooming.

You need to buy the full version (US$2.00) to get all the features but the
free version is still quite nice.

------
fwdbureau
First, congrats on the app and the selling method. Free trial and extras for
sale are definitively a honest way to go on the app store! I understand it's
hard to export a svg, but how about exporting a hi-res picture? When choosing
'save image', the super resolution option disappears, and zooming before
saving exports only a partial tile. It would be great to be able to save a
huge picture, for pro printing, for instance

~~~
mickrobk
Definitely - it's on the todo list!

~~~
fwdbureau
yay! In the meantime there's always the possibility to export to web, save the
tiles one by one on your HD and reassemble them in Photoshop like a puzzle.
Quite a fun operation

------
egypturnash
Fiddling around with it some. Interesting. It's not going to replace
Illustrator by any means (that's been my main medium for 13 years) but I kinda
like it more than Ideas - I think I might take it out to doodle some this
week.

Stuff I'd like to see:

sync sketchbook across devices (maybe via evernote?)

palm rejection with bluetooth styli

an equivalent to AI's artboard - a way to say "this is the edge of my canvas,
please export a 72/150/300/other DPI image" instead of making the user futz
with it

some way to organize drawings into different sketchbooks, also a way to delete
a drawing from the home page

I also kinda feel like I'd like to see some calibration notches on the
sliders.

The UI could be a bit more streamlined? I'd love to have immediate access to
all the tools and a color popup instead of having to possibly double-tap on
the brushes/tools icon to get the menu. ArtRage really gets it right with its
little popups in the corner and a tiny toolbar on the bottom, but bitmap apps
just make me itchy.

~~~
mickrobk
Thanks for the feedback. I could see all of those features being useful and
integrating well into the rest of the app, though setting up edges to work
within might require a bit to much UI compared to the gain in typical usage.

I went back and forth on the number of taps required to open up the brush or
tools menu - the current implementation will open the menu directly if you
already have that tool selected, and switch to the tool otherwise. Ex if
calligraphy is selected then you touch brushes -> menu opens. If calligraphy
is selected and you touch tools, then the eraser (or the MRU tool) is selected
and the menu does not open.

This flow works really well when you switch are switching between 2 types of
anything, like between calligraphy and the pencil, or calligraphy and the
eraser and (I like it because) it doesn't have popups flying in your face
constantly. It works less well if you switch between 3 (ex
calligraphy->eraser->pencil.) A second downside is that the logic behind when
1 or 2 clicks is required is somewhat less than obvious.

(You can delete drawings, press and hold on the thumbnail in the homescreen)

------
gcb0
i was actually trying to use sketchbookX from autodesk to take quick notes and
draw schema diagrams.

the lack of boundaries will make me continue to use your app! it is how i ever
felt those apps should work in the first place. you nailed it.

only critic i have now: the fake width of the traces are ok for testing out
the app. do a few swipes and something similar to a brush drawing appears.
nice. but using speed for that is completely unintuitive and impossible to
"use".. no way to make a thin straight line (have to do it slow, so it ends up
jittered) and no way to do a short bold line (no way to get to speed). either
find a way to get finger pressure or just leave it flat.

and a feature request: add simple text tool so my schema designs are easier to
do :)

~~~
mickrobk
Glad you like it! Straight bold/thin lines really aren't possible with the
default calligraphy brush. There's a marker tool if you open the brushes menu
which just does unshaped, straight lines. It's locked to the full version of
the app however.

The inkpen brush is also 'untextured' (for lack of a better word) and has a
shape profile opposite to the calligraphy brush (slower=wider).

------
NLPsajeeth
Can you export to SVG, PDF or some other vector format?

~~~
mickrobk
No unfortunately. While it's fairly trivial for me to support, the performance
difference (a factor of more than 100) between Sketchology and other vector
drawing apps makes it impossible to actually load the exported file anywhere.

I tested against Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, iDraw, and Inkpad and was unable
to load a file equivalent to drawing for more than about 2 minutes in
Sketchology. I'll have a more in depth technical analysis of this soon.

~~~
aidos
Congratulations, it looks really nice.

Are you going to be sharing the details of how you've done it or will it
remain secret? Just interested because I've done a lot of work with large svgs
(sometimes million+ nodes) over the last year (for an ongoing project) so I'm
well aware of the performance issues you mentioned.

~~~
mickrobk
Thanks! I want to talk about it - I think it's probably the coolest part of
the program. It's difficult though, I left my job about 2 years ago to work on
this so commercial success is a definite goal. Hopefully sometime in the
future I'll be able to give out algorithmic details without compromising that.

~~~
aidos
Totally understandable. I'm in a similar position myself (though in a
completely different space).

If you ever decided the secret was too much to bear and you'd like to get it
off your chest you could always drop me an email (in my profile) and we could
discuss it :)

------
edgarvaldes
Very nice, it reminds me of the approach of Mischief[1]

"What makes Mischief tick? Mischief uses Adaptively Sampled Distance Fields
(ADFs), originally invented and developed by Ron and Sarah at Mitsubishi
Electric Research Labs and further enhanced by 61 Solutions. ADFs are a new
digital representation of shape which provide numerous advantages including
high quality anti-aliasing, very fast rendering, support for massive
parallelism, very small file sizes, and the ability to succinctly represent
variable-width, scalable, textured strokes. This technology is protected by
over 50 patents."

[1]: [http://www.madewithmischief.com/](http://www.madewithmischief.com/)

~~~
nacs
I'd been looking for Paper/Sketchology type apps for desktops but the only
solutions looked to be overly complicated vector apps like Illustrator and
Inkscape. Had never heard of Mischief before thanks.

------
toddmorey
A couple of years ago, I watched a guy explaining his concept starting with
nothing but a blank canvas in Adobe Ideas (very similar iPad vector drawing
app that's been out a while). He'd sketch the high-level stuff and continually
zoom in to provide more details. It was like watching a Prezi being built in
realtime and it was memorizing. It held my attention and communicated way more
than any prebuilt presentation would have done.

------
bwr
This app looks pretty neat.

I'm working on something similar for Android but focused on note taking and
diagramming instead of drawing. I think of it as a kind of handwritten wiki. I
allow placing of links in the document that jump to other parts of the
document. It is still very much a work in progress and my lines don't look
anywhere near as good as the ones in Sketchology.

------
micheljansen
I much prefer Sketchology's freely zoomable canvases over a fixed canvas, but
somehow the brush styles don't look as nice as 53 Paper
([http://www.fiftythree.com/paper](http://www.fiftythree.com/paper)). I don't
know how to better explain this, but can Sketchology be configured to produce
similar results?

~~~
mickrobk
No it can't, more than it is already at least. I'd definitely put Paper by 53
in the top spot for drawing feel on the iPad though by a fairly wide margin -
second to Sketchology :D - I might have a slight bias though.

The way Paper implemented their tools is pretty interesting. I'd put the #1
feeling difference as due to their automatic layering system. (The most recent
line you draw in Paper is not always on top.) This goes a long ways to
creating interesting effects but isn't a direction that Sketchology went in
for a bunch of reasons.

There's also other tradeoffs ex: \- I'd say Paper's watercolor tool is better
than Sketchology's for intra-line interactions. (i.e. keep your finger down
and draw for a while) However Sketchology's is better for building up layers
of watercolor (lots of lines.) \- Drawing responsiveness is one or two input
frames faster on Sketchology than Paper, but Paper will do slightly more
shaping in that time.

There's also different design requirements, as an example Sketchology needs
line shaping algorithms that work across a wide variety of brush sizes, and
the ability for them to look consistent across zoom sizes. A lot of my early
work on shaping algorithms would look great at one size but not another.

I've a really high opinion of Paper, the drawing feel they achieved is bounds
ahead of everyone else. (Except Sketchology, again in my biased opinion.)
Ultimately though after getting used to the ability to just move drawing
around in Sketchology though I couldn't go back. Then again I wrote
Sketchology so there'd be a problem if that wasn't the case... :)

~~~
micheljansen
Thanks for the extensive reply. I haven't been able to try Sketchology yet, as
I'm waiting to get my iPad back after repair, but when I do, I will pay
attention to the responsiveness you mention. Snappiness is definitely
important.

I am far from an artist, and I mostly use Paper to sketch out rough interfaces
and interaction impressions, and I always like how Paper somehow makes my
stuff look nicer than it should. I'm terrible at space planning though, so I'd
pick function over style any day :)

------
bennyg
Looks awesome! I can't wait to get my hands on an iPad at work and download
it. I love vector drawing/illustrating - and based on your other comments, I'm
hoping there's some export functionality (even as svg) in the near future so I
can edit my creations on the internet. Your demo illustrations look amazing
too - nice artistic touch.

------
tsenkov
Looks great. Congrats!

Funny thing that came to me about an artist using it, falling into "recursion
stack overflow":

\- This is it, it's finished... Wait, I can make this beautiful picture as
only a detail of a greater, bigger and better masterpiece? (3h later) This is
it, it's finished... etc. :)

------
arcatek
"Make something big" with a very little download button looks a bit awkward.

------
alecsmart1
Got really excited. But it's only available for iPad. I use an iPhone :(

------
uses
You could use something like this to hide secrets 5 levels of zoom deep -
steganography. Someone could always export it and use tools to find your
secret, but they'd have to know it existed first.

------
alexmorse
This is what I've been looking for since the iPad came out. Your brushes
aren't as good as Paper, but the zoom feature is killer and makes the iPad a
real drawing tool for the first time.

------
oib
Looks like a closed source Ipad clone of mypaint. If you want this for the
desktop I recommend mypaint instead, it already has 8 years of development and
its free.

------
asiekierka
Rather seriously consider porting it to the Mac and adding actual tablet
support. This could be a hit if done right - see Paint Tool SAI for some
inspiration.

------
davidppp
Wow! This is a fantastic app. All of the basic tools feel natural to use, and
the vector smoothing "just works". Well done!

------
RaSoJo
Looks awesome. Is there any specific stylus that is recommended for this app?
Also would it work on an iPad Mini

------
ulyssesgrant
Been thinking about this for a long time, glad to see it's a reality now. I'll
absolutely download it

------
jbrooksuk
A very cool idea - definitely an app I'll be downloading once I finally
purchase myself another iPad.

------
droelf
wow, something like this and no one points out two fantastic FOSS
alternatives: krita and mypaint

------
guizzy
Any plans for other platforms?

Android? Windows 8?

~~~
mickrobk
The first 6 months or so of development were on Windows/Linux, so cross
platform compatibility is something I've always had my eye on. I can't say
when though, in all honesty an iPhone version is far more likely to come
before Android or Win8.

~~~
ewebbuddy
iPhone version awaited! :) The app does seem nice and handy. A better icon and
nicer website would help though not a big deal.

------
psuter
Excellent execution for something I always wanted on the iPad,
congratulations!

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asadlionpk
Now only if I had layer support and export to _some standard format_

------
Lauricio
Awesome app, well done! Any plans for POGO stylus support?

