EmbadonEverything Embadon does, and what it doesn't
Measuring PDF plans and DXF drawings to scale, and a cut-file check for DXF. Here is the full list, including the limits.
- Measuring
- Files that open
- The cut-file check
- What the check cannot see
- Markup & sharing
- Languages & devices
- Not supported yet
Measure to scale
PDF plans
- Calibrate on any length you know: tap two points and type the length, for example a 900 mm door.
- Distance, angle and area anywhere on the sheet, with the perimeter for areas.
- Snapping to the lines of the PDF where there are any, with a magnifier and a "point above my finger" option so your thumb does not hide the spot.
- Works in the PDF's own coordinates, so zooming never changes a result. Rotated, cropped and password-protected PDFs open.
- You set the scale yourself. Embadon does not detect it from the title block.
DXF drawings
- Scale from the file: if the DXF states its units, it is ready to measure and the app says so.
- Distance, angle and area, snapping to end points, midpoints, centres and quadrants.
- A self-crossing outline is flagged and shown with both its net and its enclosed area, instead of one silently wrong number.
- Results in millimetres, centimetres, metres, inches or feet-and-inches with fractions.
Type lengths the way you write them
900, 1,5 m, 5' 3 1/2", 35 7/16 in. Embadon understands your decimal comma or point and fractions of an inch.
Files that open
PDF plans of any size, and ASCII DXF from R12 to R2018. Real exports from CAD programs open complete:
- Lines, arcs, circles, polylines and text.
- Blocks: INSERT and MINSERT are expanded with rotation, scale and mirroring, nested up to a safe depth.
- Ellipses and splines are drawn as smooth curves.
- Layers and true colour are shown as in your CAD program. Layers that are off or frozen in the file start hidden.
- Files with a byte-order mark or old Macintosh line endings are read. A damaged or truncated file shows the readable part with a message instead of nothing.
Anything Embadon cannot draw is reported by name. It is never silently dropped.
The cut-file check
For DXF drawings. One tap runs the check and lists what it found. Each finding is an error or a warning; tap it to zoom to the spot, and step through every location with Previous and Next. The summary shows the number of cut paths, the total cut length and the overall size of the part.
| Check | What it catches |
|---|---|
| Open contours | A shape whose ends do not meet, so the machine may not cut it cleanly. |
| Small gaps | Ends that nearly meet, such as the 0.06 mm gap in the sample plate, which are invisible until you zoom in. |
| T-junctions | A line that ends on the middle of another shape. It is treated as joined and flagged for a look. |
| Crossings | Shapes that cross each other, such as overlapping circles or a hole drawn through an outline. An error when both shapes are closed. |
| Duplicates and overlaps | Lines, arcs, circles and polyline segments drawn on top of each other (including reversed), which would be cut twice. Matched within a tolerance, not only when exactly equal. |
| Tiny and zero-length pieces | Segments too small to matter, and zero-length or zero-radius geometry left behind by CAD programs. |
| Branch points | Places where three or more paths meet, which usually means a stray or doubled line. |
| Units and size | Missing units, and a warning when the part's largest side is under 1 mm or over 3 m, the sign of an inch part saved as millimetres. The overall size is always shown so you can judge it yourself. |
| Nothing to cut | An error when the only cut geometry in the file is something Embadon cannot draw. |
On very dense drawings the crossing check stops after a fixed amount of work and says so in the findings.
What the check cannot see
A clean result is not a guarantee
It means Embadon found nothing wrong in what it can read. Please keep these limits in mind:
- Visible layers only. Shapes on hidden layers are not checked and are left out of the cut length. The findings say how many shapes on how many hidden layers were skipped. Show or hide a layer and the check runs again.
- Shapes it cannot draw. Hatches are not drawn, and neither is anything in a DWG or binary DXF. When a file has such shapes that could be the missing side of a part, open ends are listed as a warning that asks you to look in your CAD program, instead of an error.
- Your machine and material. It does not know your kerf, minimum feature size, sheet size or what your cutting software accepts.
- It does not fix anything. Embadon shows problems and never changes your file.
Markup and sharing
Mark up a PDF
Draw lines and rectangles and add text notes. Export a flattened PDF with the markup burned in; your original file is never modified. Markup is stored encrypted in the app's private storage and is not part of any backup.
Share findings
After a check, Share sends the file name, the summary with the overall size, and every finding as plain text through your phone's share sheet. Nothing is uploaded by Embadon. You choose where it goes.
Languages and devices
- Android 8 or later and iPhone with iOS 17 or later. There is no iPad app yet.
- English plus 12 more languages: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified) and Korean. Arabic and Hebrew run right to left, and numbers follow your locale. The 12 translations are machine-translated and in review by native speakers; expect rough edges.
- Light and dark mode, and screen-reader labels on the controls.
- Works offline, with no account. No analytics, ads or crash reporting.
Not supported yet
- DWG files. In your CAD program, choose Save As or Export and pick DXF. Embadon tells you this when you open a DWG.
- Binary DXF. Save as ASCII DXF.
- Hatches are not drawn.
- iPad. The iPhone app is the only iOS app for now.
- Fixing files, detecting the scale of a PDF, counting symbols and spreadsheet export are not part of Embadon.