
Free
About
TraceCam turns your iPhone or iPad into a tracing overlay. Pick a photo, a built-in template or your own text, point the camera at a blank sheet of paper, and the image appears over the paper as a translucent layer — ready to trace with a pencil.
No printing, no light box, no transfer paper. Just your device, your reference and a sheet of paper.
HOW IT WORKS
1. Choose a photo, pick a template or type a word.
2. Point the camera at a blank sheet.
3. Line the image up with the paper — pinch to scale, drag to move, twist to rotate.
4. Set the opacity, choose a filter, add a grid if you like.
5. Lock it, and trace.
FILTERS THAT MAKE TRACING EASIER
• Line art keeps only the edges of a photo on a transparent background
• Sketch, Grayscale and Ink turn a busy photo into clean strokes
• Invert for light lines on dark paper
• Flip horizontally or vertically
GRID METHOD
• Square grid over the camera view or attached to the reference, from 2×2 to 12×12
• Copy the drawing cell by cell, the way artists have done for centuries
BUILT-IN TEMPLATES
• 35 templates: basic shapes and solids, face and figure proportions, one- and two-point perspective, golden spiral, mandala, ellipse guide, isometric and dot grids, lettering lines, calligraphy slant, comic panels and patterns
LETTERING
• Type any word or name, choose one of 22 typefaces and get an outline to trace — for cards, signs, posters and calligraphy practice
CAMERA TOOLS
• Zoom in on the paper, switch the torch on, freeze the frame
• Save a snapshot of the paper with the overlay to Photos to compare your progress
YOUR PROJECTS
• Every image is kept with its position, opacity and filter, so you can pick up where you left off
• Reopen recent projects from the library, or paste an image from the clipboard
AND MORE
• Opacity slider from 10% to 90%
• Lock the image so a stray touch cannot move it while you trace
• The screen stays awake while you draw
• The control panel folds away so nothing covers the paper
• Portrait and landscape, iPhone and iPad
PRIVATE BY DESIGN
TraceCam has no networking features at all. The camera feed is only shown on screen — never recorded, never saved, never uploaded. A snapshot is written to Photos only when you tap the button. No accounts, no analytics, no ads, no tracking.
Free. Requires iOS 17 or later.
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What's New in TraceCam
1.1
September 15, 2026






