The second beta phase of DrawingStamp Pro has begun. Beta 1 ran from the end of June with a small group — few companies, but close contact with each of them. That round is complete. Beta 2 opens the same access to a wider circle of participants, and sign-ups are open.
What happened during Beta 1
When Beta 1 started, the application carried version number 0.3.2. Today it stands at 0.5.0, with close to eight hundred builds in between. That figure says little on its own; what matters more is where the work went.
The expectation at the outset was that it would be about finding more characteristics. Feedback from everyday use moved the focus elsewhere. The missing stamp was not the problem — that one gets noticed when you look through the drawing. The problem was the stamp that is there, with a wrong value behind it.
A missing stamp gets noticed, a wrong value does not
Anyone reviewing a ballooned drawing sees immediately when a dimension did not get a number. But if the inspection plan shows the number and, next to it, a figure that is slightly off, that passes — and only resurfaces when somebody measures the wrong thing. This is where the work of recent months has gone: not into whether a characteristic is found, but into whether the value behind it is right.
What makes such cases awkward is that the application was confident about them. So they occurred precisely where nobody looks twice. That is why the release notes accompanying each beta delivery now carry a section of their own on what to pay attention to in that round — not just a list of what is new.
Stamping less is sometimes the improvement
Not every number on a drawing is an inspection characteristic. Entries that come from the design side and are not inspected do not belong in the characteristic list — they are now recognised as such more reliably and passed over. On a revised drawing that can be the difference between a usable inspection plan and a bloated one.
What else has been added
Export language is now separate from the interface. Anyone using the application in German can produce an English inspection plan without switching the interface over. The language applies to the whole plan, not just the column headings. Deliberately not translated are the bilingual labels of the VDA-style initial sample inspection report and the field names of AS9102. Those are standardised forms; translated, they would no longer be the same forms.
French is included as a draft, translated in small part so far; whatever is missing appears in English rather than blank. The menu entry says “(draft)” explicitly, and a French inspection plan should not go to a customer for the time being — the terminology has not yet been checked by a native speaker.
The drawing-correction toolbox took shape during Beta 1 and is now a fixed part of the application — it is described in detail elsewhere.
What is still open
There is plenty left to do, and the open points are listed in the release notes that accompany every beta delivery. Where an entry on the drawing cannot be read unambiguously, the application leaves the gap rather than guessing — a visible gap is the lesser evil in an inspection plan than a quietly halved value.
That is part of the programme: whoever tests should know where the limit currently sits, and should not have to discover it at a customer.
Taking part
The beta is free of charge. The application updates itself through a built-in update function, so new builds arrive without a reinstall. Which platforms are currently being delivered is shown on the download page.
The rollout stays staged: Beta 1 is complete, Beta 2 is running and taking testers, Beta 3 will open later for further participants. Anyone who would like to join can sign up on the beta page. What helps most is feedback from real work on real drawings — that is how the focus of this beta came about in the first place, not at a desk.
For an overview of what the application does and where its limits are, see Stamp drawings.