Thanks! Re: Book/Paper technical illustrations - inkscape?

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 8:05 PM, Keith Lofstrom  wrote:
> I am considering Inkscape as a technical illustration

Thanks to Serguei, Andrew, and Ron (and responses arriving
after those) confirming that Inkscape is worth investing
effort in.  I will also become more adept at "make".  
Makefiles support comments like my prior kludgy bash
scripts; without comments, I forget how things work.

My illustrations are mostly mechanical, electrical,
process, etc.  I don't do flowcharts and boxes connected
by arrows, so Dia may not be applicable.  Xfig is a
durable workhorse, but scalable vector graphics (SVG)
helps me move between screen, paper, and animation
environments.  Seemingly, Inkscape can be automated by
scripts, which is handy when I rescale components.

I also use Povray for raytraced 3D; that is pure text
parameterized input, so the "display" is in my head until
it emerges (as a bitmap) on the screen.  I make PNGs and
flash animations from that; I should learn to make SVG
and HTML5 animations instead.

I dive down into libgd from time to time, to make detailed
animated pixel plots that Gnuplot can't make, for example
  http://server-sky.com/gsr02link
Being able to make SVG/HTML5 animations like that from
enormous data files and supported standard tools would
be nice.

Gnuplot of course.  It does SVG now, time to make that
transition, too.  

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com

Re: Book/Paper technical illustrations - inkscape?

[Ron Tapia]

Hi,

I'd like topoint out an often overlooked tool, graphviz (dot):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphviz

It's included in SL:

graphviz.x86_64

It is specifically for generating figures from graphs (lattices) specified 
in a very simple language (dot).


It's not a general purpose tool, but it can save a lot of time if you find 
yourself generating a lot of figures involving graphs/lattices.


Cheers,

Ron

PS - Someone mentioned using make for documents. I use make/git for my 
documents as well. It's nice to be able to edit a dot file, type "make", 
and have the graphics as well as the document rebuilt. Keeping documents 
in a git repository with all of the history is incredibly useful.


--
Goodhart's Law: A metric used to regulate an activity ceases to be a useful 
metric.

On Thu, 6 Apr 2017, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:


Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2017 07:57:31 +0100
From: Andrew C Aitchison <and...@aitchison.me.uk>
To: kei...@keithl.com
Cc: scientific-linux-us...@listserv.fnal.gov
Subject: Re: Book/Paper technical illustrations - inkscape?

On Wed, 5 Apr 2017, Keith Lofstrom wrote:


 I am considering Inkscape as a technical illustration
 tool for latex documents (papers and book chapters).
 Suggestions for better tools?


Inkscape would be my first choice, but I'd also consider
xfig(included in SL6; for SL7 you may need to get it from epel)
dia www.gnome.org/projects/dia
Zirkel / CaR (Compass and ruler)
 http://car.rene-grothmann.de/

One interesting feature of dia is that it can be used
to generate sql schema.


--
Andrew C Aitchison  Cambridge, UK

Re: Book/Paper technical illustrations - inkscape?

[Andrew C Aitchison]

On Wed, 5 Apr 2017, Keith Lofstrom wrote:


I am considering Inkscape as a technical illustration
tool for latex documents (papers and book chapters).
Suggestions for better tools?


Inkscape would be my first choice, but I'd also consider
xfig(included in SL6; for SL7 you may need to get it from epel)
dia www.gnome.org/projects/dia
Zirkel / CaR (Compass and ruler)
http://car.rene-grothmann.de/

One interesting feature of dia is that it can be used
to generate sql schema.


--
Andrew C Aitchison  Cambridge, UK

Re: Book/Paper technical illustrations - inkscape?

[Serguei Mokhov]

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 8:05 PM, Keith Lofstrom  wrote:
> I am considering Inkscape as a technical illustration
> tool for latex documents (papers and book chapters).
> Suggestions for better tools?
>
> I usually set up bash scripts (with lots of comments)
> to automate the assembly of my documents, rather than
> use graphic environments like openoffice. I am NOT
> looking for a complete document design tool.
>
> I have Inkscape running now in SL7.3, though it has
> a strange rendering problem (overlaid windows leave
> translucent ghosts) that I'll need to fix if I want
> to use it for production.

I used LaTeX and Inkscape for most of my drawings in my doctorate
dissertation. Though I did not use much of the built-in LaTeX
integration within Inkscape itself, for my documents I exported
drawings as .png or .pdf for better quality and used them as figure
environments. Inkscape is a good portable tool for such things. I used
a Makefile for automation and building of my thesis instead of bash
scripts to assemble the PDF.

-- 
Serguei Mokhov
http://www.cs.concordia.ca/~mokhov
http://cciff.ca | http://mdreams-stage.com
http://marf.sf.net | http://sf.net/projects/marf

Book/Paper technical illustrations - inkscape?

[Keith Lofstrom]

I am considering Inkscape as a technical illustration
tool for latex documents (papers and book chapters). 
Suggestions for better tools? 

I usually set up bash scripts (with lots of comments)
to automate the assembly of my documents, rather than
use graphic environments like openoffice. I am NOT
looking for a complete document design tool.

I have Inkscape running now in SL7.3, though it has
a strange rendering problem (overlaid windows leave
translucent ghosts) that I'll need to fix if I want
to use it for production.

Keith

P.S. I've used a hodgepodge of drawing tools over the
years for patents and papers and presentations and CAD.
Most are old and unsupported now, or worse, the tools
change interfaces to adopt the latest fashion.  I want
to think about my content, not admire the cleverness
of the toolmakers.  The best tools are like wallpaper,
and fade into the background.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com