Sketching in the field
A field sketch is a blank, scaled sheet you draw on with a finger or an Apple Pencil, in the Trueleveler phone app. You pick the paper, the scale and a grid, then draw lines, boxes, notes and measurements on it, and save a picture of the finished sketch to your Photos.
Where do I start a sketch?
In the phone app, open a project and tap the Sketch tile. A small Sketch home opens with a large New sketch card at the top. Under it, a Continue button names your most recent sketch in this project, and below that you see your recent sketches with a small picture of each, its name, its scale and the date. Tap one to open it again.
A sketch is kept with the project's Drawings, so it also appears in the Drawings list, and the same markup and measuring tools you use on a plan work on it.
What do I choose for a new sketch?
A new sketch asks for four choices, then opens the blank sheet ready to draw on. You can change the grid type later with the grid button in the sketch header.
NameAnything that helps you find it, such as Closet layout or Trench section. If you leave it empty the sketch is named Field sketch with today's date.
Paper sizeLetter, ARCH C, ARCH D, A3 or A1. ARCH D is the default.
ScaleFrom 1/8" = 1'-0" to 3" = 1'-0", the civil scales 1" = 20' and 1" = 50', and the metric scales 1:20, 1:50, 1:100 and 1:200. The default is 1/4" = 1'-0". The scale decides what a measurement reads, and the grid squares are sized to a round length at that scale.
GridGraph (square), Isometric, or None. On a graph or isometric grid, new lines, boxes and notes snap to the grid points. Freehand pen strokes stay exactly where you draw them. Lines and corners also snap to the ends and corners of marks you already drew.
How do I draw and measure?
The toolbar is the same as on a drawing: pen and highlighter, arrow and line, boxes, clouds and ovals, text and call-outs, pins and stamps. Pick a colour and a line weight, or tap one of the four preset chips above the toolbar; hold a chip to save the current tool, colour and weight into it. The first pen chip is dark ink. The measure tool reads real lengths and areas at the scale you chose.
With an Apple Pencil, your palm is ignored while you draw and touch is used to move the page. You can turn this off in Settings.
How do I see the whole page again?
Pinch to zoom and drag to move, as before. The round Fit button at the bottom right of the sketch fits the whole page to the screen in one tap. You can also tap twice quickly with two fingers. The page cannot be pinched smaller than about 0.6 times the fitted size, so it never shrinks to a speck, and it zooms in to a limit of 8 times.
What is Bright sun?
Outdoors in glare, thin coloured lines are hard to see. The round Bright sun button, above the Fit button on a sketch, switches to thick dark blue-black ink, makes the grid lines bold and makes the grab handles on stamps larger. Tap it again to go back. Your choice is remembered on that device. Without Bright sun, a new sketch starts with near-black ink instead of thin red.
How do I save or share a sketch?
Tap Snapshot at the top of the sketch and choose This view or Full page. The picture, with a title band showing the sketch name, scale and date, is saved to your Photos, and you can attach it to a task, RFI, punch item or daily log like any other photo.