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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?"

16 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. You missed one by lakeland · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:You missed one by 02bunced · · Score: 2, Funny

      What about thick black permenant marker of the front of the screen? Makes a good drawing program in my experiance!

      --
      "The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One stands for danger; the other for opportunity
  2. Yes, You missed one. by tonywestonuk · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... a vector drawing program, that IS what you wanted..... No? Try here: Virtual Etch-a-sketch (Flash required). Cheers.

  3. 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>

  4. 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
  5. A *good* PS / EPS tutorial somewhere? by green+pizza · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 across the page
    * Another line across the page
    * A bunch of text presented in three columns
    * An embedded raster image somewhere in the text

    Yeah, I know I'm far better off to use a real DTP program, or at least do this in TeX / LaTeX. But I think it's simple enough to where it shouldn't be too impossible to do with straight PS and some sort of way to embed the EPS and raster images.

    Anyone have any pointers?

    1. Re:A *good* PS / EPS tutorial somewhere? by josh42 · · Score: 2, Informative
      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.

  6. 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.

  7. Missed TGIF by saikatguha266 · · Score: 2, Informative

    TGIF 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

  8. SVG Icons by ochinko · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:SVG Icons by akzeac · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

  9. A few of these should be counted . . . by Brendor · · Score: 4, Informative
    Alias Maya 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, (a hybrid vector/raster tool) and Microsoft Acryllic.

    I believe Studio Artist is primarily vector based.

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

  10. Does nobody here use Freshmeat? by jd · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:Does nobody here use Freshmeat? by Bazzargh · · Score: 2, Informative

      Use Inkscape rather than potrace directly - you get all the potrace goodness, plus you can edit the results. very nifty.
      http://www.inkscape.org/doc/tracing/tutorial-traci ng.html

  11. QCad by smugfunt · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.