Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Software for creating freehand graphs?

[tipsen]

I'm looking for WYSIWYG software for drawing freehand graphics - preferably vector graphics and preferably in ps or pdf format which is easy to include.

The illustrations I need are mathematical/economical of nature - I need 2-dimensional graphs to illustrate different concepts and the underlying mathematical functions are not necessary (ie. the exact functions are irrelevant to the concepts)

I'm using WinEdt and MiKTeX but need something for creating my illustrations - I've found LaTeXDraw, Scientific WorkPlace, MatLab and more but I don't think any on them really fulfills my requirements... (maybe LaTeXDraw is the most promising but it doesn't work properly on my Windows 7 setup)

Any ideas or pointers?

[adam_west]

Take a look at Inkscape, it's intended to draw vectorial graphics, you can export them in many formats like *.eps, *.pdf, *.svg, *.png, etc. It's free and you can also use it with latex. I don't know if Inkscape will fulfill your requirements but take a look at it

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi tipsen,

welcome to the forum!

You could try jpgfdraw. Besides that, I use TikZ for smooth drawings looking like freehand made, using either smooth plots or the hobby package such as here.

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{hobby}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \draw [thick, ->] (-3,0) -- (3,0) node [anchor=north west] {};
  \draw [thick, ->] (0,-3) -- (0,3) node [anchor=south east] {$\mathbf{C}$};

  \draw (0,2) to [closed, curve through = {(1.4,1.2) (1.5,1) (2,0)  (1.2,-0.2)
    (0,-1.4) (-1.5,-0.8) (-0.7,0) (-1.4,1) (-0.2,1.5)}] (0,2);

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

glatte-kurve.png (3.18 KiB) Viewed 3463 times

jpffdraw example from the link above:



Stefan

homotopy.png (22.07 KiB) Viewed 3463 times