Re: LUG: Scientific drawing software for Linux - Tue, 18 May 2010 22:22:53 -0400

I see that smartdraw does several things.

* Bar charts - i'd put this in a category of 'numerical graphs'. Charts and graphs based off data. Kinda what you used to do in excel. Personally I do all of mine in either MatplotLib (i integrate them into python scripts generating the data) and Gnuplot (which happens to be able to output, among other things, direct LaTeX, which is great for homework/papers/labs/journal articles).

* Flowchart/graphs - this is more of a connectivity sort of graph. I used to lay these out by hand, then discovered GraphViz. It makes me happy like LaTeX does, I just give it the semantic info (connections) and it will do the layout and drawing for you. This is especially handy for computationally or generatively formed graphs/charts.

* Maps - data overlaid on a map of the world. Many plotting packages are able to do this nowadays, including some statistical plotting packages. I use R for my statistical analysis and plotting needs. But I have Mathematica installed (we get it for free as NCSU students), and it's capable of doing that as well. (Mathematica is the 'brains' behind Wolfram|Alpha)

Hope this helps. There is some crossover (for example Gnuplot can do maps as well), and mostly I choose software based on type. These are all packages I'd recommend becoming familiar with, because they let me visually represent data quickly and efficiently.

Also, did I mention i <3 gnuplot because it outputs LaTeX? Easiest way to put graphs in lab reports ever.

Post Script: I sometimes completely nerd-out on lab reports and have build scripts that take data files (.csv's) and run Gnuplot scripts to create plots from the data and include them in a LaTeX lab report. I can make changes and rebuild the report with a single command (and get other LaTeX advantages, like the ability to use my BibTeX archive for referencing journal articles ive read).

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Daniel Underwood < daniel.underwood@ncsu.[redacted] > wrote:

Yeah, Dia is great, but not very full-featured beyond drawing simple flowcharts and diagrams.

--
Daniel Underwood
North Carolina State University

MSc - Operations Research
daniel.underwood@ncsu.[redacted]
XXX.302.3291
http://www.ncsu.edu/~djunderw/

On May 18, 2010, at 9:58 PM, Richard Carter < rwcarter@ncsu.[redacted] > wrote:

That looks like Visio, and Visio looks like the following according to
OSAlt: ( http://www.osalt.com/visio )

ArgoUML 0.24
ArgoUML is a great UML (Unified Modeling Language) tool. Written in
Java and using Java Web Start makes it easy to work with (install) and
use on any platform. It has full support for the UML 1.4... Read more

Kivio 1.6.1
Kivio is part of the KOffice open source office suite. For
flowcharting, network diagrams and all other graphing need Kivio
solves them with an easy to user interface. As part of the KOffice
office... Read more

Dia 0.96
Dia is designed to be much like the commercial Windows program
'Visio'. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It
currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship... Read
more

OpenOffice Draw 3.0
Open Office Draw, part of the Open Office package, wasn't designed to
compete with high-end graphics packages but is an easy to use,
effective drawing tool that makes it simple to create flowcharts,...
Read more

Ricket

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Daniel Underwood
< daniel.underwood@ncsu.[redacted] > wrote:

Looking for software to draw scientific diagrams/charts/images/etc.
Ideally something like

< http://www.smartdraw.com/ >

...but for Linux.
--
Daniel Underwood
North Carolina State University
Graduate Student - Operations Research
email: daniel.underwood@ncsu.[redacted]
phone: XXX.302.3291
fax: XXX.515.5281
web: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~djunderw/