The Minciu Sodas laboratory

Diagram Editors

I've  grouped results from my search with Google on 2002.07.23.  When using Google, search diagram editor but also try diagramming tool .  See also our list of tools for thinking . Andrius Kulikauskas

General diagrams

Microsoft Visio is an all-purpose tool for editing diagrams.  Visio Standard  2002 for business diagramming is ~$200 and Visio Professional 2002 for technical (including UML and database) diagramming  is ~$500 are marketed as stand alone tools within the Microsoft Office family.  A free viewer works with Internet Explorer.  In Visio Professional, diagrams can be annotated with data, and exported to Microsoft Excel, Access and Word.  Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect includes Visio tools and combines them with Object Role Modeling.  

xfig, http://www.xfig.org, is the main graphics editor for the X11 window system for Unix/Linux.  jfig is a 2D graphics editor of FIG files that implements with Java as much of the xfig functionality as it can.  Aside from the editor there is also a presentation viewer (a 200 KB Java applet) for viewing FIG files embedded in HTML pages. [ http://tech-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/applets/javafig/index.html , 7/02 , Andrius Kulikauskas]

Dia is a diagram editor based on gtk+ and released under the GPL license.  It is an alternative to Visio, and includes objects for drawing entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits.  It stores diagrams in a custom XML format where a subset of SVG is used for drawing the shapes.  The diagrams can be exported to EPS or SVG.  Dia was originally developed by Alexander Larsson,  alla@lysator.liu.se , and has had many contributors.   and Lars Clausen maintain and develop it on Linux, and Hans Breuer and Steffen Macke maintain the Win32 port. [http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/ , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

If you can afford to spend a little money, ConceptDraw and SmartDraw are both capable and full-featured programs along the lines of Visio, but more reasonably priced. ConceptDraw (~$125-$250) is vector drawing software available for both PC and Mac.  Objects can be assigned to layers.  The professional version includes XML support by which a diagram can be generated from a textual description, and vice versa, allowing third party applications to read (and presumably change) data.  There are many forms of export, including graphic files, PowerPoint, Visio, AutoCad DXF, and PDF.  SmartDraw for Windows ($70 to $200) is for business charts and diagrams.  The professional version includes symbol collections and custom libraries can be assembled.  The professional version is integrated with Microsoft Office as an OLE client (allowing embedding of spreadsheets, etc.) and an OLE server (allowing pasting of diagrams).  A variety of files can be imported, but primarily graphic images can be exported.  There is a Japanese version. SmartDraw has a free viewer.  [http://www.conceptdraw.com http://www.smartdraw.com , 7/02 , Peter Kaminski, Andrius Kulikauskas]

The SUN Star office include includes a pretty sophisticated drawing program. You may also want to check out Open office although I have not been able to get to the site lately. [7/02 , KK Aw]

On-the-fly image creation has long been well-served by Thomas Boutell's open source GD Graphics Library , which has been interfaced with a number of languages, probably including Python. [http://www.boutell.com/gd/ , 7/02 , Peter Kaminski]

I may have found a Python solution for you. Please see if the "Python Imaging Library" (PIL) will do what you need. It's at http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ and they have a "free" version (GPL-ish?) available. [ http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ , 7/02, Jeffry Archambeault]

In 1996, Richard Tobin, a researcher in the  Language Technology Group at Edinburgh University, and XML specialist, created a Java applet for editing diagrams on the web.  The applet can be used to download a diagram from a URL on the web, edit it, and then upload it to a URL.  Java security requires that the URLs be on the same machine that the applet is loaded from.  [http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~richard/Java/DiagramEditor.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Digital Insights offers Robochart Flow Diagram Editor for drawing data flows, UML charts, flow charts, org charts, entity relationship diagrams and PERT charts.  Robochart runs on Linux or Solaris.  It supports a variety of drag-and-drop shapes, and logical zooming between hierarchical levels of detail.  Text can be edited directly and pasted from the clipboard.  Diagrams can be exported as images and HTML maps files.  There is an MIF export format for use with FrameMaker, and an ASCII export format for custom post-processing.  Separate diagrams can be linked together for complex documents.  A trial editor is available for free download, but does not allow diagrams to be saved.  Robochart is ~$300 for Linux.  [ http://www.digins.com/rcinfo.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Scott determan@world.std.com  is working on an all-purpose customizable diagram editor .  There is a demo . [http://varatek.com/scott/about_me.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

This list includes SYLVA and some more diagram editors [ cbl.leeds.ac.uk/nikos/tex2html/ examples/concepts/node77.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

JGraphPad is a free diagram editor based on JGraph .  It can be used for flow charts, maps, UML diagrams.  Diagrams can be exported to XML and JPG.  Makes use of Sun's Java Web Start technology.  A commercial version is under development.  [http://www.pxe.ch/jgraphsuite/jgraphpad/ , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

There is a Java applet for drawing simple diagrams.  It showcases GlgBean and Glg Extended API.  [ http://www.genlogic.com/java/diagram_java.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Diagen is a diagram editor that generates diagrams based on a hypergraph grammar.  [http://www.computer.org/conferences/vl95/talks/T24.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

http://www.polarsoftware.com/products/draw/

Software Technology diagrams

OptimalJ is a tool for visually modeling domain classes, attributes, associations, business methods and rules for J2EE applications. [http://www.compuware.com/products/optimalj/about.htm , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

DeZign for databases is a database development diagram tool for drawing entity relationship diagrams and generating SQL schemas.   [http://www.datanamic.com/dezign/index.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Object Math Inheritance and Composition diagram editor [http://www.ep.liu.se/ea/cis/2000/006/ , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

UML diagrams

Objects by Design has a useful list of criteria for evaluating UML modeling tools.  They include a Graphics model in Scalable Vector Graphics that makes use of an Adobe plug in viewer that features outstanding zoom capability.  [ http://www.objectsbydesign.com/tools/modeling_tools.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

In Brazil, Cleidson R. B. Souza, Jacques Wainer and Cecilia M. F. Rubira coauthored Cooperative Diagram Editing on the Web where they describe their Java based prototype (A2BCDE) Applet Annotation Based Cooperative Diagram Editor for the cooperative creation of UML diagrams.  [ http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~cleidson/icse98/node14.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Voodoo UML class diagram editor. [http://voodoo.sourceforge.net, 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Statechart diagrams

http://www.otwsoftware.com/files/chapter_9_statechart.pdf

Activity diagrams

http://www.otwsoftware.com/files/chapter_8_activity.pdf

Interaction diagrams

http://www.cs.auc.dk/~normark/dyn-models/ tool-tour/intdia.html

Sequence diagrams

http://www.profcon.com/profcon/seeq/help/editor.html

Block diagrams

Aldec has an block diagram editor for visualizing the organization of the components of a design entity.  Each item in the diagram has a counterpart in VHDL or Verilog code. [ http://www.aldec.com/ActiveHDL/51XE/Flow/bde.htm , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

More block diagram editors:
www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Code/4658/indexe.htm
www.32bit.com/software/listings/Development/ Special/_220P/23540/
www.cs.mcgill.ca/~yinkai/cs767/ass1/editor1.htm - 9k
www.32bit.com/software/listings/Development/ Special/_220P/13737/
www.cs.uml.edu/~lechner/bdeUG_2000/bdeUG_2000.htm
www.translogiccorp.com/products/ease1.htm
www.cs.uml.edu/~lechner/bdeUG2htm/bdeUG.ppt
www.enme.umd.edu/ice_lab/java/SP99/ dgbutler/javaproject.html

Biology diagrams

http://transport.physbio.mssm.edu/rbde/RbDe.html

Neural network diagrams

A diagram editor for the genetic design of artificial nervous systems. [http://www2.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/Research/Activities/Soft-Computing/Evolvica/ , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Chess diagrams

http://www.rebel.nl/epd2diag.htm

Logical diagrams

The TECH group of the Department of Computer Science, University of Hamburg, has several Java applets that  work as diagram editors.   KVD is for drawing Karnaugh-Veitch-diagrams with minimal numbers of logical functions such as AND and OR.  Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams of logical expressions can be drawn with the BDD applet.  [http://tech-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/applets/applets.html , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Causal diagrams

http://www.koelnvention.de/software/joepass/ doc/cdew-doc/doc/html/toc.html

Verification diagrams

http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~stateclock/STeP/ WWW/diagram-editor.html

Ladder diagrams

http://www.advameric.com/advalog.html
http://www.sixnetio.com/htmlhelps/sxnisag/5a65d34.htm

Musical diagrams

http://www.drsdigital.com/cb.html

Linguistic diagrams

http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/Site/CALDERJO.html

Physical diagrams

TINA by DesignWare Inc is a diagram editor for electronic circuit design, simulation and analysis. [http://www.designwareinc.com/diagram.htm , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

TimingTool is a free-to-use website for editing the waveforms of electrical signals.  Registered users receive 1 MB of space for their timing diagrams, and can translate the TDML standard to VHDL, Verilog and SystemC. [http://www.timingtool.com , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Martin Cooke has created a pole-zero diagram editor for creating linear systems, applying them to signals, and playing them back. [http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~martin/MAD/polezero/polezero.htm , 7/02, Andrius Kulikauskas]

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~fisher/ccted/
http://www.forteds.com/products/td_faq.html