When you first start up PocketCAD Pro, you have the familiar CAD black screen. With PocketCAD you have no-nonsense acccess to the most basic and most needed CAD functionality. When you tap TOOLS -> FILE -> OPEN, you get the standard Pocket PC OS file open dialog box, showing you all the PocketCAD Pro .CAD files in your ‘My Documents’ folder. I opened a file that I transfered from my desktop using CadExchange. This file, I should tell you, shows a piece of property about 35 acres in size and is a building and parking lot designed project.

   Next is the icon that specifies what the current “active” command is. When you click that icon, the (very!) large command toolbar pops up. Let’s come back to that more in depth later, as well, but first, I should say that when you select a command, that command becomes the “active” command. This is a nice feature. What this means is that if you pick “zoom window” and then you tap and drag your window, you can just tap and drag another window to zoom right away without having to select a new command from the command toolbar. This is sort of like the function in AutoCAD of just hitting the “Enter” key or the spacebar to repeat the last command. So, this icon will show you the currently “active” command.

   The next icon, which in the screen shot is a magnifying glass is the icon that tells you what the D-pad does when you press it. There are three modes for the D-pad. The first, show with a magnifying glass, gives the following functionality: press left and right and you will pan left or right correspondingly; press up or down and you will zoom in or out corrsepondingly. (Begin Rant) Let me tell you why this is a great feature. Our friends at Arc Second Inc. realize that this is a made-for-Pocket-PC-application. As such, it should take into account that the user will be using a … Pocket PC. Pocket PC users are accustomed to D-pads. Hence, Arc Second Inc. placed the most commonly used function (zooming, panning) right there under my thumb. (End rant) If you PRESS the D-pad, then the D-pad mode changes to the second of three modes. This mode is shown with a Up/Down arrow. In this mode, when you press up or down, you will pan up or down correspondingly, when you press left or right, you will pan left or right correspondingly. Press the D-pad again and you will change to the third of the D-pad modes: shown with a left/right arrow. In this mode, pressing left or right OR up or down will pan the view left or right correspondingly.

   Now, let’s take a look at the “Tools” menu. Under the “Tools” menu, you have access to the “Files” menu, where you can start a new drawing, open an existing drawing, save the current drawing to its existing location or as a different file, or you can view PocketCAD’s preferences (more below). Also under the “Tools” menu, you can set PocketCAD’s options (more below), manage PocketCAD’s Addins, view the about screen and exit the program.

   Next, specify which angular units you want to work in from those available. Finally, specify the amount of precision you would like to view for dimensions.

   Next, notice PocketCAD’s “Options” screen. From this screen, you can specify whether or not to use a template with new drawings, and specify what that template would be. You can toggle the Coordinate display on and off. If you are used to working with a black background in your CAD work, set this toggle on. If you don’t like how big the command toolbar is on the screen, just click to “Auto-Hide” it. I think this needs to be implemented a little bit better. How I really wish the toolbar would work is like this: tap the icon, and it shows until I tap it again — and it disappears. Instead, the toolbar is either ALWAYS on (which critically hampers my precious screen real-esate), or it “Auto-Hides” — in which case the toolbar only shows up for ONE click and then disappears again. I can’t help but feel that this could be better implemented somehow. Next, specify the current text height, how big Point objects will be when they are drawn, and what the current draw elevation is.

   PocketCAD also allows add-ins that can extend the capabilities of PocketCAD. I must admit I was somewhat disappointed with this feature. AutoCAD’s architecture allows a great deal of modification and programming of additional features as the need arises. Using AutoCAD’s LISP engine, I wrote many megabytes worth of code for automation purposes that were specific to the projects I was working on. I think I was expecting something along the lines of what AutoCAD offers. Instead, the offerings were a bit sparse. Amsystems has developed a few interesting but expensive (!) add-ins. One other developer has developed FieldWorks, a survey field data collector that is supposed to work in conjunction with PocketCAD.

   Now, let’s take a brief look at the command toolbar.

Row 1

   This is the first row of the toolbar. Its commands are the following, from left to right: pan, zoom previous, zoom window, zoom extents. Next are “pick points” (which is the same as AutoCAD’s running Object Snap, or Osnap — more below), “Set Points” (which allows you to select points on the screen based upon direction and/or distance, a nice feature — more below), Measure (which will give you distances and angles between selected points), Undo, Redo, and the Layer dialog box (more below).

Row 2

   This is the second row of the toolbar. Its commands are the following: Change layer (which changes the selected objects to the current layer), Select (which allows you to select objects), Properties (which gives you information about a single selected entity), Delete (or, Erase), Move, Copy, Rotate, Trim, Extend, Offset.

Row 3

   This is the third row of the toolbar. Its commands are: Create Point, Create Circle (with center point and point on circle), Two-point circle, Three-point circle, Line, Polyline, Sketch, Arc (with two points and the center), three-point Arc, and create Rectangle.

Row 4

   This is the fourth (and final!) row of the toolbar. Its commands are: Create Text (this text can also be a block attribute!), Insert Block, Explode, Make Block (in the drawing file), Write Block (to an external file — nice), and, finally, Horizontal, Vertical, and Aligned dimensioning commands.

   All-in-all, not bad, really, for a Pocket PC application! Below are the available “Pick Points” (Osnaps) that you can use. Uh-oh. Where is “perpendicular”? I use perpendicular AN AWFUL LOT. That is just about a killer for me. I mean, if I’m always working in even angles from true-zero rotation, then this is okay. But how do I draw a line perpendicular to something on the screen that I don’t know its rotation? Or how do I measure the shortest distance between two objects?

   Here is the small pop-up that shows when you use the “Measure” command. For some reason, I had trouble with the angular measurement showing up sometimes. I checked PocketCAD’s User Guide, but nothing was listed…

Desktop Application: CadExchange
   With the inclusion of CadExchange, PocketCAD Pro can be used to easily edit and view your DWG and DXF drawing files from your desktop, and to keep these synchronized.

   PocketCAD Pro includes a pretty good inline help file which gives basic information about how the application works and is meant to run. If you want more information, you can visit PocketCAD’s website. You can also download PocketCAD’s User Guides, or view Arc Second’s Online FAQ and Tutorials, or check out their Support Page.

    According to PocketCAD’s website, PocketCAD reads and writes AutoCAD