{"id":116142,"date":"2020-07-31T15:35:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T15:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/news\/?id=i6qdbzn9"},"modified":"2020-07-31T15:35:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T15:35:08","slug":"behind-the-design-shapr3d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/07\/31\/behind-the-design-shapr3d\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Design: Shapr3D"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Five years ago, Istv\u00e1n Csan\u00e1dy hung a piece of paper on the wall of his nascent company\u2019s all-too-small office. Scrawled upon it: \u201cEasy should be easy. Hard must not be impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though this phrase was written on sheet paper, it might have well been etched into stone. It became the founding principle for Csan\u00e1dy\u2019s app, Shapr3D \u2014 a reinvention of computer-assisted design (CAD) systems, created exclusively with Multi-Touch and Apple Pencil in mind.<\/p>\n

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While inspirational phrases have spawned many a weightless office poster (and a smattering of snarky variations), this one was weighted in truth by the frustrating real-world digital design experiences of Csan\u00e1dy\u2019s family. \u201cWe have eight or nine architects in three generations in the family,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

As a child, he remembers his mother grousing over the arduous multi-month process of getting new CAD software, which often involved enrolling in a costly school to understand how the program worked. \u201cInstead, eventually, she [would just hire] a couple of CAD draftsmen.\u201d <\/p>\n

As both a 3D modeling enthusiast and a budding software engineer, Csan\u00e1dy was instantly drawn to the problem. \u201cA great product is characterized by a minimal tool time,\u201d Csan\u00e1dy says. \u201cNobody really wants to [take time to] learn to use their software.\u201c<\/p>\n

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He founded his first CAD startup in 2010 after a brief stint as an iPhone developer. While this first venture was unsuccessful, Csan\u00e1dy kept thinking. He took long bike rides. He pondered the problem in the late hours of the night. And he began creating the first prototypes of a touch-based 3D modeling system for iPad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got obsessed,\u201d he confesses. In 2014, out of pure faith in the endeavor, Csan\u00e1dy quit his job as a senior software engineer and got to work. While iPad Pro and Pencil had at the time yet to be introduced, he started exploring what a touch-and-stylus interface might look like.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best interactions are always the ones that have physical analogies,\u201d Csan\u00e1dy says. He drew inspiration from tactile tools, creating digital controls for each modeling operation that mimicked their real-world counterparts. And when iPad Pro and Apple Pencil launched, Csan\u00e1dy and team quickly brought the drawing tool into their planning. <\/p>\n

“What makes the Apple Pencil and its stylus interaction super powerful is that both are metaphors for the real world,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd because they are metaphors for the physical world around us, we just don’t have to educate [someone] about the function of these input devices\u2026 That radically shortens the learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Csan\u00e1dy and his newly-growing team used Multi-Touch and Apple Pencil to build a solid foundation for Shapr3D. Perfecting it, however, was a years-long affair. \u201cThere are no shortcuts,\u201d he says. \u201cWe did hundreds of prototypes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The team interviewed professional 3D modelers and architects, running case studies and inviting them to use \u2014 and sometimes break \u2014 their software. \u201cYou need to see them fail a thousand times,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd based on those failures, we can tweak tiny little things, and step-by-step get to the right solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Csan\u00e1dy has more than a few lessons he and his team have learned when it comes to designing a professional multitouch interface. \u201cExplicit is always better than implicit,\u201d he says. As an example, he references Shapr3D\u2019s push-pull interface, which displays arrow-handles on items that people can \u2018grab\u2019 to move something around the screen. \u201cUntil a couple of years ago, we didn’t show those arrows,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was one of the greatest learnings of all time\u2026 if we explicitly show these handles, that increases the success rate by two orders of magnitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years after launch, Shapr3D maintains this obsessive focus on building the perfect tool for its professionals. \u201cWhat works for Shapr3D works because we have a very specific audience in a very specific context,\u201d Csan\u00e1dy says. \u201cThe product works for our audience because we designed it with them in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Shapr3D team has grown significantly since its early days in that cramped office. Csan\u00e1dy employs a staff of 55 in Budapest, all of whom are working tirelessly to keep iterating and improving upon the app to make it an even better tool for professionals. They\u2019ve added exhaustive tutorials, contextual and adaptive controls, keyboard shortcuts, and continue to adjust the workflow to be an even smoother process for everyone who uses the app. \u201dIt’s about always raising the bar and always being a little unhappy,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can always do 10 percent better\u2026 Never be satisfied with what you have built.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to field studies, the team incorporates analytics, usage data, and App Store reviews into its long-term product planning. They continuously evaluate opportunities, identify the gaps where the company is now, and look at where they want to be in the future. It\u2019s a complex multidimensional puzzle, but Csan\u00e1dy\u2019s vision is clear \u2014 and just a little bit ambitious. \u201cWe want to become a verb, like Xerox.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Learn more about Shapr3D<\/a><\/p>\n

Read about Shapr3D on the App Store<\/a><\/p>\n

Download Shapr3D on the App Store<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Istv\u00e1n Csan\u00e1dy hung a piece of paper on the wall of his nascent company\u2019s all-too-small office. Scrawled upon it: \u201cEasy should be easy. Hard must not be impossible.\u201d Though this phrase was written on sheet paper, it might have well been etched into stone. It became the founding principle for Csan\u00e1dy\u2019s app, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-developer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}