Bildebook 4+

This is a very slick book reader app to read specially designed popup books, like children’s popup books on the iPad, although it could be used for any sort of 3-D book. There are a number of sample books that you can download, such as a Malayalam language book, a demo showing the mechanics of pop-up books, and several cards like a happy birthday or welcome card.

The books are very easy to read, and use swipe gestures designed for a child to use and explore. It’s a very interesting way to see a popup book on the iPad, because you can swipe to slowly open a page partway and watch the items pop open. You can also spin or enlarge the book as you are spinning it.

There is an add-on that you can use to make your own books (I did not try this yet, it is an in-app purchase) and the app has a store with a number of different downloadable books. All of the books shown are free for now, but I imagine as more content comes online, there will also be paid options for more content.

Overall, this is a very well-designed UI and a nice virtual method of reading the kinds of pop-up books I had in paper format as a child.

Within 20 minutes, I was able to use all the features in the plug-in to create complex pop-up books with multiple layers, each with their own image texture. The user interface was intuitive and all my questions were quickly answered by the help section. I am using Bildebook to reconstruct digital copies of classic children's pop-up books from the 1930s and have found the app to be very powerful. Highly recommended.