Re: technical drawing program
prad wrote: any recommendations? i've tried dia and inkscape. the former seems to be good for flowcharts and general diagrams while the latter is great for all sorts of things, but i'd like to be able to do accurate geometric diagrams and was wondering if something more appropriate is available. I'm not sure it fits what you are trying to achieve, but I do all my drawing-stuff in ipe (graphics/ipe ). All my documents are typesetted using LaTeX, ipe has build in LaTeX support for it's text formatting so for me it is an ideal program. It's a relatively simple editor so I'm not sure if it suffices your needs but you may give it a try. It's a shame the FreeBSD port's version is so old (6.0-pre23 while the current version is allready 6.0-pre31 (or even 6.0-pre32 I'm not sure) though. -- - Frank ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:28:19 +0100 Frank Staals wrote: It's a shame the FreeBSD port's version is so old (6.0-pre23 while the current version is allready 6.0-pre31 (or even 6.0-pre32 I'm not sure) though. Do you know that saying it's a shame... you are actually speaking about yourself either? The port is maintained by po...@freebsd.org (it's a public maillist). That means that the port is maintained by all FreeBSD users uncluding you. Since you use this port you may consider updating the port and send a PR about it. That's may be your contribution to the project. You even may become a maintainer of the port. Thanks for your contribution in advance! WBR -- bsam ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
Boris Samorodov wrote: On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:28:19 +0100 Frank Staals wrote: It's a shame the FreeBSD port's version is so old (6.0-pre23 while the current version is allready 6.0-pre31 (or even 6.0-pre32 I'm not sure) though. Do you know that saying it's a shame... you are actually speaking about yourself either? The port is maintained by po...@freebsd.org (it's a public maillist). That means that the port is maintained by all FreeBSD users uncluding you. Since you use this port you may consider updating the port and send a PR about it. That's may be your contribution to the project. You even may become a maintainer of the port. Thanks for your contribution in advance! WBR Hehe, to be honest I kind of expected this kind of reply from someone. Some time ago I attempted something like a port, however my knowlege at that time was not sufficient to get it running. Currently I'm running an OS X system as my default platform (since FreeBSD still lacked/lacks decent sleep/hybernation support; and for that seriously applies I do not have the knowlege to fix it) so maintaining a port is going to be difficult. However maybe I'll try again just to prove myself I can create a port. So in short: When I was saying it's a shame.. I was also refering to myself indeed ... Regards, -- - Frank ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Boris Samorodov wrote: On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:28:19 +0100 Frank Staals wrote: It's a shame the FreeBSD port's version is so old (6.0-pre23 while the current version is allready 6.0-pre31 (or even 6.0-pre32 I'm not sure) though. Do you know that saying it's a shame... you are actually speaking about yourself either? The port is maintained by po...@freebsd.org (it's a public maillist). That means that the port is maintained by all FreeBSD users uncluding you. Since you use this port you may consider updating the port and send a PR about it. That's may be your contribution to the project. You even may become a maintainer of the port. Thanks for your contribution in advance! WBR Well, maybe I might categorize things a bit. There are programs, like inkscape (which was mentioned), they're really far better at either doing drawing, or modifying already finished drawaings. These kinda programs (including the biggest of them all, gimp), while being incredibly good at drawing, they fall very far short of being technical drawing programs, which basically want to help you lay out spcific items constructed mostly from lines, circles, etc, packing them up into subitems which can then themselves be manipulated (like, drawing a schematic of a transistor, saving it, and then dotting that transistor all over). A technia drawing program is what you want for that, and a art drawing program is what you want if you are trying to get straight artistic effects (like maybe a web page background. There's a 3rd level, the Cad programs, they're usually based upon the technical drawing programs, either directly, or merely extending the command set) but they usually add in substantial support for active dimensioning. If you're going to do something really substantial, like drawing an architectural drawing, you definitely want a CAD program, like maybe Autocad. Drawback with those is that they're definitely pricey, and definitely have a far harder learning curve. If you wanted to limit yourself to technical drawing, your best bet is likely the xfig program. It's been around more than 20 years now, 20 years where there has been steady improvements. The interface is so well conceived, you don't really even need to read teh manual to use it at the 80% level, and a little thought can give you all the rest of it's capabilities. This won't do you any good if you're trying to do something like take the fog out of a picture, or maybe remove red-eye, but if your goal is to produce a technical drawing at 0 cost, and with the least investment of your time, with results which can still look very nice, then go look at xfig. There's a second one ... I never really liked it all that well, but tgif seems to be more integrated into using a browser as an active tool, and it's also had all those years of active development. Like I say, it's not by favorite, but if you wanted to be able to look at 2 of the best technical drawing programs and then make your choice in a more reasoned manner, then compare xfig with tgif. They're both FreeBSD ports, both VERY well done, if you want technical drawing without reliance on advanced pro-level features and dimensioning, this is the way to go. I never had a chance to look qcad over. Maybe someone else who has that experience with it could give a better critique of it, without sounding like a salesman or a booster. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkl6ClkACgkQz62J6PPcoOnFFQCZATA1VbpzcG83sN/+OuOmj2x2 H9AAn2tXB/eym3qf+bzpMUzXrXgaNwxG =VGcz -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
Chuck Robey wrote: I never had a chance to look qcad over. Maybe someone else who has that experience with it could give a better critique of it, without sounding like a salesman or a booster. I have used xfig and qcad. Qcad is definitely more complicated to use, it is handled similarly to autocad, but, like autocad, it allows to do precise 2D drawings. Basically qcad is a simplified 2D autocad. I don't think, at least i am not able to do similar precise things with xfig, which, on the other hand is convenient to insert schematic drawings into Latex stuff. Since both are available for free, the OP can try both and see what he prefers for his job. -- Michel TALON ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:37:34PM -0800, prad wrote: any recommendations? i've tried dia and inkscape. the former seems to be good for flowcharts and general diagrams while the latter is great for all sorts of things, but i'd like to be able to do accurate geometric diagrams and was wondering if something more appropriate is available. -- In friendship, prad I have no idea whether this is what you're looking for, but check out http://www.geometricalgebra.net/. You need Java on your computer to run this software. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:37:34PM -0800, prad wrote: any recommendations? i've tried dia and inkscape. the former seems to be good for flowcharts and general diagrams while the latter is great for all sorts of things, but i'd like to be able to do accurate geometric diagrams and was wondering if something more appropriate is available. The most appropriate freely available program to do that is qcad, otherwise autocad if you want to pay money. See /usr/ports/cad/qcad -- Michel TALON ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: technical drawing program
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:37:34PM -0800, prad wrote:
any recommendations?
i've tried dia and inkscape. the former seems to be good for flowcharts
and general diagrams while the latter is great for all sorts of things,
but i'd like to be able to do accurate geometric diagrams and was
wondering if something more appropriate is available.
You could try graphics/xfig if you want an interactive graphical
program. Or cad/qcad for a real 2D drafting program.
For very accurate file-based drawing you could try the metapost
programming language {name of the binary: mpost(1)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaPost]}, available from the
print/teTeX-base port. Or the Asymptote language from the math/asymptote
port. [http://asymptote.sourceforge.net/].
Roland
--
R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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Re: technical drawing program
On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:37:34 -0800, prad p...@towardsfreedom.com wrote: any recommendations? i've tried dia and inkscape. the former seems to be good for flowcharts and general diagrams while the latter is great for all sorts of things, but i'd like to be able to do accurate geometric diagrams and was wondering if something more appropriate is available. xfig -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
