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29 Vector Drawing Programs

Posted by timothy on from the drawling-lahns dept.

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?"

4 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. You forgot notepad by dnixon112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    <?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>

  2. Weird Grouping by TheFlyingGoat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
  3. AutoCAD and Illustrator? and where is... by RandWalker · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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???

    1. Re:AutoCAD and Illustrator? and where is... by guardian-ct · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, part of the problem with AutoCAD LT is that, originally, a license for it was around $100. In the past few years it tripled. Hence the complaint that LT's upgrade price was so high.

      I'm also fairly sure he was looking for inexpensive vector software, and LT doesn't count as inexpensive anymore. It used to.

      AutoCAD LT is also nowhere near as powerful as AutoCAD.