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29 Vector Drawing Programs

Posted by timothy on Tue Aug 02, 2005 01:07 AM
from the drawling-lahns dept.
Graphics Software
Ed Pegg writes "I did a survey of all available vector-based drawing programs, in anticipation of SVG in the next Firefox. I found 29 different vector drawing programs. Of these, 14 were free or open source. More than I expected. Did I miss any good ones?"
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  • I've found that for producing vector figures (mostly for research papers) OmniGraffle is pretty amazing. Its not free, but supports far more features than dia (such as helping you auto align and create symmetric figures). Also the interface seems nice and well done.

    Phil
    • How does it compare with Illustrator?
      Does it do CMYK? Does it do exports in a good
      variety of formats? Does it handle page layout
      issues so printing people (at places like
      Science and Nature) are happy?
      • Doubt it can replace illustrator. Do not believe it supports CMYK. Many export options. No clue about the last one, but you can almost poke around the website [omnigroup.com].
      • I haven't actually used it enough to compare it, and I have no real experience with Illustrator. I don't have too great of needs when it comes to vector graphics. Mostly making diagrams consisting of circles, arrows, boxes and text. For that purpose you really don't need anything too fancy, but I found OmniGraffle much easier to use and line up objects to make them look good than Dia (although running dia remotely on a dual xeon vs OmniGraffle on my ibook was a big plus for dia).

        As for CMYK, I know there
      • I am not the original poster, but I've used OmniGraffle:

        It has a long NeXT heritage means GnuStep and Mac OS X are the targeted OS's. Others may be a challenge.

        In my opinion, OmniGraffle excels at diagramming office graphics rather than print graphics (Illustrator) or drafting graphics (CAD). But templates exist for circuit diagrams, UML, and many other technical domains.

        The big features I like in OmniGraffle are:

        • AutoLayout - Makes a first pass at arranging your data.
        • Connection Magnets - very flexible
    • I use OmniGraffle 3.0 [omnigroup.com] for doing diagrams and charts. It works absolutely fantastic for that (once you figure out the somewhat strange shapes palette so you can import several thousand additional figures). It's easy to use and the output is beautiful, I love the nice vector shadows and such, they print out really nicely. I wouldn't use this app for designing logos or other artwork though, it's pretty much strictly a diagraming program, I suppose that's why it supports Visio file formats, but not Corel Draw f

  • You missed one (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lakeland (218447) <lakeland@acm.org> on Tuesday August 02 2005, @01:14AM (#13219860) Homepage
    cat > file.ps
    10 10 moveto
    50 50 lineto
    stroke
    showpage

    Perhaps cat is not the easiest to use, but it easily the most powerful and easier to control from another program! It can also be trivially scripted to produce eps and pdf, or later updated with $EDITOR.

    • Mod this up! This sort of technique really came in handy when I needed to add some arrows to a LaTeX figure just before submitted a research paper for review last week. The necessary steps:

      1. Google for "draw lines in eps". Result: Drawing and Filling Shapes [indiana.edu]
      2. Read just enough to get going.
      3. Insert the few commands at the end of the eps file in a simple text editor.
      4. ...?
      5. profit!

      All in all, it took maybe 30 minutes to go from 0 to 60. A very powerful tool. Also not bad for editing captions, labels, etc. -- P

    • I've googled for PS / EPS tutorials a few times and I either find really basic documentation or overly detailed low level documentation. I would like to know how to lay out a basic "newsletter" style document in PS.

      I basiclly want to learn how to create a letter (or A4) sized self contained PS document that contains the following:
      * Embedded EPS logo in the upper right hand corner
      * Large typeface header text to the left of the logo
      * A line across the page
      * Date / Issue / etc information on one line of text a
      • Short answer: It's more complex than you think.

        To PostScript, a letter/word/line is just another shape that can be put on the page. You'd need to break lines manually, control line spacing yourself, etc. Want it justified? Forget it.

        You'd be much better off using (La)TeX for this sort of thing.

      • I would like to know how to lay out a basic "newsletter" style document in PS.

        Personally, I don't think hand-coding your own PS routines to do something like that is really practical, but if you really want to do it, Don Lancaster [tinaja.com] has what you need. The guy is a (mad) genius with PostScript.

      • I have to agree with the other poster, LaTeX is by far going to be the easiest and most efficient way to do this. The quickest way to get it done is to just extend an existing document class and make your own. It's actually easier than it may sound - you can probably mostly just inherit from the article class and do a renewcommand on maketitle (copy and paste out of article.cls then edit it to suit your needs) Grab the multicol package to do your three columns.

        Jedidiah.
        • In fact, I'll go ne better - it's pretty easy to knock these things up once you've done a couple, so here's my quick and dirty version of what you described:

          \NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
          \ProvidesPackage{newslet ter}
          \LoadClass[a4paper,12pt]{article}[2000/01/01 ]

          %Load Required Packages
          \RequirePackage{multicol}
          \RequirePacka ge{graphicx}

          \renewcommand\maketitle{\par
          \begingroup
          \renewcommand\thefootnote{\@fnsymbol\c@footnote}%
          \def\@makefnmark{\rlap{\@te

    • What about thick black permenant marker of the front of the screen? Makes a good drawing program in my experiance!
    • What about cat > file.svg ? ; )

  • Yes, You missed one. (Score:4, Funny)

    by tonywestonuk (261622) on Tuesday August 02 2005, @01:16AM (#13219869)
    ... a vector drawing program, that IS what you wanted..... No? Try here: Virtual Etch-a-sketch [babygrand.com] (Flash required). Cheers.

  • You forgot notepad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dnixon112 (663069) on Tuesday August 02 2005, @01:21AM (#13219877)
    <?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
    <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN"
      "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd" >
    <svg width="12cm" height="4cm" viewBox="0 0 1200 400"
         xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1">
    <rect x="1" y="1" width="1198" height="398"
            fill="none" stroke="blue" stroke-width="2" />
    <circle cx="600" cy="200" r="100" fill="red" stroke="blue" stroke-width="10" />
    </svg>
    • Hi,

      as you can see in other messages, it's good pratice to supply a link to the tool so that we can download and test it. Does anyone have a link?
    • Why is this flamebait, when the post above saying the same thing but with PostScript and cat was (4, Interesting)? Is it that you don't like SVG, or don't like Notepad, or are you all just on crack?
  • The article notes:

    Adobe is buying Macromedia, might vanish.

    Might? MIGHT????

    Dude, FH has hada tube up its nose for years, and now that Adobe has it in its clutches, it's good as GONE. Which is a terrible shame, because I prefer FH to AI any day of the week. It was much more intuitive, and it had MULTIPLE PAGES (like DUH!) and was generally just a Better Application. What pissed me off with FH was it had a persistent memory leak in vers 9, 10, and MX, which they never properly fixed. But even with cras

    • I would expect AI to simply sit and suck for the rest of eternity until they finally roll it into Phootoshop 14 or whatever.
      If Adobe was ever going to roll AI into Photoshop, they would have done it around version 3.0 when they added layers. I highly doubt they will ever merge the two applications, Adobe would much rather sell you two applications than just one.

      If you want a good alternative to AI, check out Corel Draw. Seriously. It's a great app once you learn its quirks. Even Corel Photopaint is a worthy
      • I use Corel Photopaint every day. I have Photoshop, PSP, etc. but they don't get used unless I need a specific feature that Photopaint lacks (and most Photoshop filters work with Photopaint). Photopaint is way easier to use, and much faster on the same hardware. (Tho I much prefer v8.0 to later versions, which are starting to pick up some of Photoshop's user-hostile traits.)

  • Weird Grouping (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheFlyingGoat (161967) on Tuesday August 02 2005, @01:27AM (#13219893) Homepage Journal
    Ok... I can kind of understand why this could be helpful to someone looking for a vector drawing program for some purpose, but the programs on that list do such different things. CAD graphics are for one thing, vector illustration is another, graphing programs are yet another. Even included a vector animation program. Sure, they all use a particular method of calculating objects, but that's about it.

    Can you imagine trying to do an ad layout with AutoCAD? How about trying to do animated web graphics with a graphic program.

    This chart is pretty much useless, except for listing what standards formats each can handle.
  • for slashdotting drunk at 2 am. Tsk tsk.
  • Of these, I've used Autocad LT since 1998, but their latest upgrade price ($349.00) seems high. I've found Illustrator and CorelDraw more powerful.

    AutoCAD and Illustrator are for completely different audience. I get a lot of plots from Matlab; and Illustrator is a good package to make some touch up to the graphs. I would never use AutoCAD for that. But you really can't say which one is more powerful.

    And where is XFig???

  • Missed TGIF (Score:2, Informative)

    by saikatguha266 (688325)
    TGIF [usc.edu] is a very nice vector drawing program. It is a very highly evolved version of xfig (but with better UI than xfig -- not gtk or qt though). It exports to a whole slew of vector formats -- my favourite being LaTeX and EPS. I don't leave home without it. ... Then again, I don't leave home much. :-p

  • SVG Icons (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ochinko (19311)
    I've always wondered why rendering of scalable icons isn't relegated to the font server. Seems to me that all the needed code is already there.

    • Re:SVG Icons (Score:2, Informative)

      by akzeac (862521)
      AFAIK they are optimized directly for font rendering (black/white or black with grey tones), while SVG requires colors, gradients, multiple transparencies, textures and so on.

    • I've always wondered why rendering of scalable icons isn't relegated to the font server. Seems to me that all the needed code is already there.

      That is a very good idea.

      I think the main reson for not doing it is that, by shifting rendering up to a server from the client, the ability to scale dynamically (without a round trip to the server for each component) is lost. I find myself using the firefox scroll-wheel scaling more and more as my eyes get old and lazy, so personally I'd generate a lot of extra

  • Fireworks does vector and raster in one program very intuitively and is my number one tool for quick web mockups. Unfortunately, like Freehand, I fear that Adobe is going to do the death dance on it to make you buy their TWO ridculously overpriced and overpowered tools for this space. Which is very, very sad, since it is the only tool I know of that does all the things it does without a ton of extra fodderol you aren't going to use for web work and costing a bloody fortune.
  • Close enough for my purposes, creating maps in vector formats - QuickGrid [perspectiveedge.com].
  • What I'm really after is an EPS to SVG converter so that I can use them with Apache's FOP [apache.org] tool.

    Any suggestions?

  • A few of these should be counted . . . (Score:5, Informative)

    by Brendor (208073) <brendan.e@NOsPam.gmail.com> on Tuesday August 02 2005, @02:11AM (#13220000) Journal
    Alias Maya [alias.com]has a great vector renderer. It outputs decent AI/EPS files as well as .swf files.

    Also there were previous slashdot stories about Pixar's in-house Sketch Review Tool [millimeter.com], (a hybrid vector/raster tool) and Microsoft Acryllic [microsoft.com].

    I believe Studio Artist [synthetik.com] is primarily vector based.

    There are also many vector programs for the sign/graphics industry to control CNC routers and plotters. FlexiSIGN [scanvecamiable.com] is one of them.

  • GraphViz [graphviz.org] which lets you draw graphs (has perl module too) in different formats including SVG. I believe I once saw a subroutine call tree drawn in it from perl profiler.
  • Not open or free, but Realdraw http://www.mediachance.com/realdraw/ [mediachance.com] is one of my favorite drawing tools. It's not as deep as AI or Freehand, and is probably closer to Fireworks in concept since it also does html slicing and bitmaps, but to get a design out quickly and intuitively it's one of the best.
    It exports to SVG, and the author has a policy that you pay once and get upgrades for the life of the app.

    If you thought Microsoft Acrylic was a good idea, but needed work, Realdraw is what it'll be like when
  • 1. Photoshop
    2. Paint Shop Pro.

    While both of these are better known as Raster tools they actually do as much if not more in dealing with Vector images.

  • I'm surprised you didn't list xfig [usask.ca], despite listing a port and a clone (and noting they were related to it).

    I often use xfig to draw simple figures for latex documents that I write... I've always found the interface quite awkward to use, though. .fig files are also a bit restricted, but conveniently they're often easy to edit by hand.

  • Somebody asked this question a few years ago on slashdot in a more 3-D context, and one person heartily recommended SketchUp [sketchup.com]. They've got a free download.

    I checked it out, and have been a happy customer every since. They've got both MacOS X and Windows versions, and it really kicks ass - it's the only vector drawing program that I've used where I feel happy to just doodle and something interesting tends to evolve. It's that good of a tool, that it naturally extends your imagination. Of course, becaus

  • Does nobody here use Freshmeat? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jd (1658) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [kapimi]> on Tuesday August 02 2005, @03:46AM (#13220178) Homepage Journal
    Some of these are probably listed elsewhere, but many aren't (as of the time of this posting) and it's good to have them collected in one place, anyway.

    This list is NOT comprehensive, even of what is on Freshmeat (which, in turn, is not comprehensive in what is Open Source, which in turn is not comprehensive in what exists) but it should make for a good start.

    Oh, and this list was trivial to make. Once you have such a list, it is then easy to go out and try the software to see if it'll do what you want. According to the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, "it is a mistake, often made, to theorize without data". So, when you theorize as to what software you'd like to use, here is some data you can use.

    • White Dune [freshmeat.net] - one of the best VRML editors - but, then, who uses VRML?
    • Sodipopi [freshmeat.net] - a very respectable editor
    • Vector Visuals [freshmeat.net] - looks like a nice package
    • Gnu Plotutils [freshmeat.net] - long-in-the-tooth, but is pretty standard and does do SVG.
    • Quantum GIS [freshmeat.net] does do some GIS-related vector work, but it is unclear as to whether you can really edit the vectors, per se
    • Artstream [freshmeat.net] - not been maintained in a while, though
    • Skencil [nongnu.org] is a package recommended by Artstream's developers as a good, modern alternative
    • JFDraw [freshmeat.net] - Seems to be a good drawing package.
    • Sketsa [freshmeat.net] - a good sketching package, looks pretty powerful
    • Figurine [freshmeat.net] - doesn't look terribly maintained, but does look ggood.
    • Cenon [freshmeat.net] - Not sure about this one, but seems OK
    • Inkscape [freshmeat.net] - seems to be recommended by other Slashdotians.
    • GDraw for gnustep [freshmeat.net] - which, of course, means you'd need to install GNUStep to be able to use it.
    • Autotrace [freshmeat.net] - a vital tool if you are wanting to vectorize raster images. There are a lot of tracing programs out there, but this one seems fairly popular. Not sure if it strictly fits the definition of a "drawing program", though.
    • tgif [freshmeat.net]
    • Gestalter [freshmeat.net]
    • KDE 2D Workbench [freshmeat.net]
    • RLPlot [freshmeat.net]
    • Magelan Graphics Editor [freshmeat.net]
    • Geist [freshmeat.net]
    • VisIt [freshmeat.net] - arguable as to whether it really counts
    • X3D-Edit [freshmeat.net]
    • mjbWorld [freshmeat.net]
    • Dia [freshmeat.net]
    • QCad [freshmeat.net]
    • JGraphpad [freshmeat.net]
    • Flash For Linux [freshmeat.net]
    • Gaphor [freshmeat.net]
    • DoubleType [freshmeat.net] - good for those doing their own fonts
    • Chemtool [freshmeat.net], as molecules can be vectors too!
    • Glips Graffiti SVG Editor [freshmeat.net]

  • QCad (Score:3, Informative)

    by smugfunt (8972) on Tuesday August 02 2005, @04:04AM (#13220215)
    TFA says QCad is $28 but it is free (and Free) for the *nix versions.
    And maybe it isn't totally intuitive but it is easy to learn. I give it a thumbs up anyway.

    • Don't you have homework to do?
    • and could you have written a less informative post?

      it is not a news source, it is a NewsSource[], where each element is a pointer (reference in post 1990's terms) to a news source, which is an informatve article.

      The job of the post is to describe the contents of the news source, which it did quite accurately.

      It is the job of coral cache, mirrordot and karma whores [and assholes like piquepaille] to mirror the content verbatim.

      To answer your rhetorical question (every rhetorical question deserves an answer ;
    • And going back a little further, 'macdraw'.
      MacDraw was neat, but most Mac users in 1984 were more comfortable in the raster world with MacPaint. Bezier curves scare most folks! Still neat to work with EPS files on a Mac 512K.

      Did you know that MacDraw/ClarisDraw has inspired a Mac OS X version? EazyDraw [eazydraw.com] It's a bit weird but the price is right.
      • So is Firefox Mozilla's version of Internet Explorer or Mosaic?

        The truth is FreeHand and Illustrator are VERY different programs, their even for different things, SHOCK!

        I use FreeHand almost every day, I used to use Illustrator but I found FreeHand is a much better tool at a better price, tho learning to use it was considerably harder than Illustrator.

        Also the FreeHand project started in 1988 which is plenty long enough ago to consider it a different product than Illustrator.

        Sure we can go back and forth ov

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