graphics

graphics

[jim stasheff]

Thanks to all the suggestions for `flow chart' graphics.
I had first asked the alg top list and had no responses
whereas here I've received 4 or 5 suggestions


gastex,
dia (on Linux)
xy-pic
xfig
 "The LaTeX Graphics Companion",
Goossens, Rahtz, and Mittelbach
use the xy-pic and PSTricks packages
to draw flowcharts.

if anyone has used more than one and cares to comment,
I would appreciate that

as for example
Subject:
             Re: categories: graphics package
       Date:
             Sat, 21 Feb 2004 15:24:28 +0000 (GMT)
      From:
             Michael Abbott <michael@araneidae.co.uk>
         To:
             James Stasheff <stasheff@email.unc.edu>
 References:
             1




> Anyone have a recommendation for a software package that makes it easy
> to draw the equivalent of flow chart?
> with boxes, triangles, circles as junctions??

This can be done, with the dint of much pain, with XyPic directly in
LaTeX.  The layout tends to be perfect, but learning how to use the tool
for anything beyond the simplest diagrams is remarkably painful.

On the other hand, xfig produces very nice results with manual layout,
and
is really quite easy to use (though figuring out how to drop the
diagrams
into your LaTeX document has its surprises).

jim

Re: graphics

[David Yetter]

My favorite method is to draw figures in xfig, then export the result as
LaTeX picture code and edit the text to take advantage of LaTeX's
text processing capabilities, fonts and special symbols.

It would be quite suitable for flow chart graphics.

D. Yetter


On Saturday, February 21, 2004, at 10:57  AM, jim stasheff wrote:

> Thanks to all the suggestions for `flow chart' graphics.
> I had first asked the alg top list and had no responses
> whereas here I've received 4 or 5 suggestions
>
>
> gastex,
> dia (on Linux)
> xy-pic
> xfig
>  "The LaTeX Graphics Companion",
> Goossens, Rahtz, and Mittelbach
> use the xy-pic and PSTricks packages
> to draw flowcharts.
>
> if anyone has used more than one and cares to comment,
> I would appreciate that
>
> as for example
> Subject:
>              Re: categories: graphics package
>        Date:
>              Sat, 21 Feb 2004 15:24:28 +0000 (GMT)
>       From:
>              Michael Abbott <michael@araneidae.co.uk>
>          To:
>              James Stasheff <stasheff@email.unc.edu>
>  References:
>              1
>
>
>
>
>> Anyone have a recommendation for a software package that makes it easy
>> to draw the equivalent of flow chart?
>> with boxes, triangles, circles as junctions??
>
> This can be done, with the dint of much pain, with XyPic directly in
> LaTeX.  The layout tends to be perfect, but learning how to use the
> tool
> for anything beyond the simplest diagrams is remarkably painful.
>
> On the other hand, xfig produces very nice results with manual layout,
> and
> is really quite easy to use (though figuring out how to drop the
> diagrams
> into your LaTeX document has its surprises).
>
> jim
>

Re: graphics

[Jeremy Gibbons]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Vaughan Pratt wrote:

> If you're a Picasso in such things then
> starting off with xfig isn't so bad, but if you're more of a Mondrian you
> might prefer to work in Latex's picture environment from the get-go.
> ...
> The only other widely supported language I know that's expressive enough to
> write a complete macro library in 20 lines for capabilities like flowcharts,
> digital or analog circuits, and lattice diagrams and that interoperates
> smoothly with Latex is PostScript.

I'm surprised no-one seems to have mentioned John Hobby's METAPOST
language. This is a mostly declarative language, with the capability of
solving linear equations. (So you can, for example, express that one item
appears halfway between two others, and that relationship will be
maintained as either endpoint moves.) It also integrates beautifully with
LaTeX. If you're neither a Picasso nor a Mondriaan, but you like writing
programs, I would have said this was the tool for you. Should come with
any decent TeX distribution.

Jeremy

RE: graphics

[Valeria.dePaiva]

Hi all,

Robert suggested TeXCad for people who use Windows. I haven't used this
system, so cannot comment, but here are my 2 cents worth, just in case...

I believe that some day we will be able to draw in the computer as easily
as we do in a piece of paper. But meanwhile, you can draw your diagrams in
pieces of paper and use ScanScribe (overview at)
http://www.parc.com/spl/groups/pda/scanscribe/index.html
to make them digital.
They won't look as neat as our latex ones, directly. So I, for one, won't
be giving up on my latex diagrams quite yet. But you can read about
possible uses of ScanScribe for *manipulating* category theory diagrams in

http://www.parc.com/saund/papers/diagrams-poster-ss-abstract.html

Also if you haven't yet invested the time into getting your latex (xypic
or other) in place, maybe these diagrams will be good enough for you, I
don't know.

Moreover, Eric Saund the creator of ScanScribe is a very helpful computer
scientist, who usually likes to have users and tend to be glad to assist
them, whenever necessary. In particular, I think he has worked with
flowchart diagrams (which might have been the beginning of this thread, I
don't remember.)

Best,
Valeria

Dr Valeria de Paiva
PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Road
PAlo Alto
CA 94304 USA




-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Seely [mailto:rags@math.mcgill.ca]
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 8:44 AM
To: Categories List
Subject: Re: categories: Re: graphics


Using picture mode is very convenient when things aren't too complicated, and editing picture mode code is always (well, almost always) easier than redoing mouse based drawing.  But the combination of a mouse-based drawing to generate picture mode code, then editing that for fine-tuning is often helpful.  For those who are condemned to the Windows framework, let me recommend TeXCad - originally written by G Horn (it was then part of the emtex distribution), currently maintained by Gautier de Montmollin <http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/gdm/texcad.htm>.  Like Xfig, it creates picture mode code from your mouse-based drawing.  The two programs are not completely similar (I prefer TeXCad, but others may differ!), but if you're using Windows, give it a try.

-= rags =-

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Vaughan Pratt wrote:

> Xfig is pretty convenient, but one can get a tad impatient with xfig's
> imprecision after a while.

-- 
<rags@math.mcgill.ca>
<www.math.mcgill.ca/rags>

Re: graphics

[Vaughan Pratt]

>My favorite method is to draw figures in xfig, then export the result as
>LaTeX picture code and edit the text to take advantage of LaTeX's
>text processing capabilities, fonts and special symbols.
>It would be quite suitable for flow chart graphics.
>D. Yetter

Xfig is pretty convenient, but one can get a tad impatient with xfig's
imprecision after a while.  The time it takes to drag a vertex into position
with acceptable precision tends in practice to be several times what it
takes to simply type that position in by hand if you can see right away
which lattice point it has to be.  If you're a Picasso in such things then
starting off with xfig isn't so bad, but if you're more of a Mondrian you
might prefer to work in Latex's picture environment from the get-go.

As with xypic, choosing a scale that makes the coordinates meaningful integers
helps a lot here, e.g. being able to coordinatize the vertices of a diamond
as (1,0), (0,1), (-1,0), (0,-1), or putting the inputs to an AND gate at
(0,1) and (0,3) and the output at (4,2), or putting the vertices of a Hasse
diagram at small lattice points.

The only other widely supported language I know that's expressive enough to
write a complete macro library in 20 lines for capabilities like flowcharts,
digital or analog circuits, and lattice diagrams and that interoperates
smoothly with Latex is PostScript.  That works too, the main downside
compared to programming directly in Latex's picture environment (for
those using pdflatex) is the external file needed in the use of epstopdf
plus includegraphics.  (I'm using both in the paper I'm currently working
on, mainly for fear of running out of Tex's memory with the more complex
figures.  Not that either are great programming languages per se, actually
they kind of suck in that regard, thank you Don, Leslie, John, and Chuck!)
The above comment about picking the right scale applies equally to Latex's
picture environment and PostScript.

When your diagrams are sufficiently like the ones that xypic, diagram.tex,
and diagrams.tex are designed for, those are pretty good too.  But they're
not really conceived of as programming languages, making their usefulness
inversely proportional to the distance between their kind of diagrams
and yours.

Vaughan Pratt