General > General Technical Chat
Simple technical illustration software/tools?
forrestc:
--- Quote from: shabaz on May 13, 2024, 05:49:17 am ---PowerPoint meets all the bullet-points that were mentioned, but for sure it's not a 'pro' tool, it's just an easy-to-use tool (mostly!). I can't say if it is quick to use or not, because doing some stuff 'just right' will take time, depending on if one is a perfectionist or not. But if you don't make perfect the enemy of good, then PP can be very quick to create understandable diagrams of the type you showed. I'm just mentioning this in case PP had been written off as a viable option or not, that it might still be worth persevering with, if some of the features of it are unknown.
--- End quote ---
I've just spent some time with PowerPoint, and I think you might be right in that this seems easier than I gave it credit for. The drawing tools (and in particular) the curve drawing tools are better than I remember. Couldn't figure out how to do an appropriate "text bloom" which helps provide contrast when pasting text on top of a mixed light and dark image, but it looks like word art might make that possible, or the outlined text might work for that. So thanks for reminding me to look at it again.
I do find on occasion I just ignore an option because of past bad experiences. PowerPoint definitely tends to fall in that category since I seem to have to fight some @(#$* poorly designed template some well-meaning conference organizer is forcing upon ALL presentations at the conference. So PowerPoint has cost me many hours of my life - didn't immediately think of it the other way around.
You mentioned visio - I used to love visio, but since it got gobbled by Microsoft I find it more and more frustrating every time I try it. I'm not sure why, but I think it might be that it's evolved more to a 'flowcharting' and 'computer diagram' tool. Similar problem with dia and other programs which do a good job of making flowcharts and org charts and the like - they do what they do well, but other things I find frustrating. I've given it a good shot again a few times, but every time, I find myself more frustrated than I should be. Especially for it's cost.
Nominal Animal:
I wrote a step-by-step on how I typically do it in Inkscape in this thread and in this message in particular.
For a simple outline, you can use the Filters > Morphology > Outline one, and after you get it to look like what you want, move it to the entire layer (by using the XML editor to remove the filter:url(#filterNNNN); style attribute from the object you created it for, to the layer g element style attribute). That way, whenever you add text or anything else to that line, it is automatically outlined. Of course, you can have more than one such effect layer, with the same or a different effect. The problem is making a nice filter effect(s) that work for all background images, really! Feel free to use or play with my example:
RoGeorge:
Fingerdraws on an Arduino touchscreen! 8)
CatalinaWOW:
A hack that may help for PowerPoint is to add very small circles at attachment points on your images, and then group them with the images. Now you have attachment points for your lines which will remain connected if you move the images.
If you are doing this often a PowerPoint file containing these images for copy and paste into your replies would mean preparing each image only once
pdenisowski:
Since almost every presentation / video I produce is based on PowerPoint, I try to create as many things as possible directly within PowerPoint - there is an awful lot that you can do with the basic drawing tools, and more complex shapes can often be produced with things like Union, Intersect, etc. (which I think many people are unaware of because MS hides them in the PPT menu structure).
For more complex illustrations or shapes, I use Adobe Illustrator. I also use Illustrator when I need to have the illustration as a separate, editable file (.svg).
And in some cases, I actually use MATLAB to create certain types of graphics, e.g.
https://youtu.be/BijMGKbT0Wk?t=307
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version