[vox-tech] Rant: LaTeX graphics programs

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Fri 29 Apr 05,  4:27 PM, Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com> said:
> on Fri, Apr 29, 2005 at 04:52:06PM -0400, Peter Jay Salzman (p at dirac.org) wrote:
> > On Fri 29 Apr 05,  1:46 PM, Ken Bloom
> > > 
> > > I'm not sure if there was a question here, but have you tried using
> > > inkscape or sodipodi? Saves in eps and svg formats (and some bitmap
> > > formats as well), and I think it's a pretty good application.
> > > 
> > > --Ken Bloom
> > 
> > Wow.  The descriptions sound absolutely awesome.
> > 
> > I'm a little ashamed to say that I'm starting to enjoy xfig after playing
> > with it for a few hours.  The quality of the eepic export is very high, but
> > I *definitely* want to check those packages out.  Thanks for mentioning
> > this!
> 
> Incidentally, what sorts of figures/diagrams are you doing?  Got any
> sample output?
> 
> 
> Peace.
 
Sure thing, but I have to warn you -- these aren't the most complicated
diagrams in the world.  That's partially why I got used to writing my own
picture environment stuff (and after using it for so long, I've become fast
at it.)  It was always faster to DYI than to figure out xfig's atrocious
interface.

Here's three documents that should show a nice cross section of the type of
stuff I'd like to do with graphics programs (all this stuff except for
damped.ps were done by hand.  The damped.ps document was done with xfig
(Jon and Mark, thank you for converting me.)

http://www.dirac.org/damped.ps
http://www.dirac.org/eddy.ps
http://www.dirac.org/Green-Functions.ps

If you have any suggestions, I'd definitely be appreciative.

One of my problems with xfig and dia is that I haven't figured out how to
put mathematics in my diagrams.  Something like:

   \put(50,65){$\vec{F} = \fder{p}{t}$}

which would be trivial when drawing my own diagrams.  I suppose I could
insert it in the .eepic file that xfig generates, but the whole point is to
try to do this in a wysiwyg manner.

Even if it means just clicking on the screen to open up a box and type the
equation myself (which is what I'd prefer --- I'm light years faster doing
typeset math than any human being can be using a lyx/MS Word equation
editor.)

Thanks, Karsten!
Pete

-- 
Every theory is killed sooner or later, but if the theory has good in it,
that good is embodied and continued in the next theory. -- Albert Einstein

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