Using MatterCAD on a Phone

On a phone held upright, MatterCAD lays itself out to give the 3D view as much of the small screen as it can. You get the same layout whenever MatterCAD’s area is narrower than 600 pixels, for example in a browser window made narrow, and in MatterCAD on your computer if you make its window that narrow. Turn the phone sideways and most phones get the full layout instead. The layout changes as you turn the phone or resize the window; your design, what you have selected and your undo history stay as they are.

On the Design’s Page

On a phone, the title bar’s buttons are icons only: the back arrow (to the library), the pencil (Edit), which turns into a check mark (Done) while you edit, the full screen icon (where your browser can fill the screen), and the download arrow (Download). Press the pencil to edit. The toolbar comes down from the top and the bottom sheet comes up from the bottom.

The Toolbar

The toolbar keeps to one row across the top:

  • Add Shapes (the cube) - Opens the shapes grid (see Add Shapes below).
  • Save - Saves the design (Saving on the Web).
  • Undo and Redo.
  • ☰ - On the website, the MatterCAD menu: New Design, Interface Tour, Help and Settings (The MatterCAD Menu).
  • More (…) - Everything else in the toolbar.

On a very narrow screen, the buttons at the end of that list move into More to make room, starting with ☰. More itself always stays.

More

Tap More to open a panel under the toolbar, over the 3D view. It holds the rest of the toolbar: Add to Bed, Bed and every group of operations. Each group has its collapse arrow, so you can fold away the groups you don’t use; a group you hid on a wider screen shows here too.

The panel closes once you pick a command. Tap anywhere outside the toolbar to close it without picking anything.

Add Shapes

The favorites bar isn’t shown on a phone. Tap Add Shapes instead. A grid of the same shapes opens across the top of the 3D view.

  • Tap a shape to add it to your design.
  • Or drag a shape out of the grid and drop it on the bed where you want it.

The grid closes when you add a shape or tap an empty spot in it. Tapping outside it and the toolbar closes it too.

The Bottom Sheet

The side panel becomes a sheet along the bottom of the screen. Its top row holds the Design and AI tabs and the Notes button (Design Notes).

The sheet rests at one of three heights:

  • Peek - Just the tab row and one row under it, with the selected part’s name. Tap the name to raise the sheet to half.
  • Half - The sheet takes a bit less than half of the room under the toolbar, and the 3D view keeps the rest. This is where it starts.
  • Full - The sheet covers the 3D view.

To move it, use the grab handle at the left end of the sheet’s top edge:

  • Drag the handle up or down. The sheet follows your finger and settles at the nearest height when you let go.
  • Tap the handle to step from peek to half to full, then back to peek.

MatterCAD remembers where you left the sheet.

Camera Controls

On a phone there is no cube. The camera buttons sit in a column at the top-right of the 3D view, row by row:

  1. Select Parts, Rotate View, Move View and Zoom View - What a one-finger drag does.
  2. Reset View and Zoom to Selection.
  3. Turntable Mode and Perspective Mode.
  4. Show Bed and the view style button.
  5. The snap button and the units button.

They work as described in Viewport Navigation. When MatterCAD frames your design (Reset View, Zoom to Selection), it keeps the design clear of this column.

Touch Gestures

One finger does what the selected mode button says, and two fingers pinch to zoom and move the view in any mode. See Touch Screen.

Typing

Tap a field, such as a size in the Properties panel or the name in the Save As box, and MatterCAD’s own keyboard slides up from the bottom of the screen. MatterCAD makes room above it: the bottom sheet rests on top of the keyboard, the 3D view gets shorter, and the field you are typing in stays in sight.

To put the keyboard away, tap the key with the down arrow on the bottom row of the letters page (the ?123 and other symbol pages don’t have it), or tap outside the field, for example in the 3D view. The layout goes back to how it was.

Full Screen

Where your phone’s browser can fill the screen, the title bar has a full screen icon (four corners), just before the download arrow. Tap it to fill the screen with the title bar and the design, and tap it again to go back. Where the browser can’t fill the screen, as on an iPhone, there is no full screen button at all, neither in the title bar nor in MatterCAD.