https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Circuit_diagram_%E2%80%93_pictorial_and_schematic.png/250px-Circuit_diagram_%E2%80%93_pictorial_and_schematic.png
I know these are not the kinds of things SolidWorks is intended for. For reasons I will probably never understand, I may have to choose between AutoCAD and SolidWorks for my work, which includes making such illustrations. I have a fair idea how AutoCAD might work but I don’t know about SolidWorks. I’ve used SolidWorks for designing assemblies of solid parts, for which it’s great, and I need to have it available in any case. I realize there are often simple line drawings as intermediate steps in the creation of parts. The question is really whether it can be hideously bent to making these kinds of drawings, or if instead the very idea is ridiculous.
What do you need to output those drawings to. Something like Inkscape is arguably a more than sufficient tool compared to either of these applications for the stuff you are linking.
I’m a long time user of AutoCAD and Inkscape and I’ve dabbled in Solidworks a long time ago. Like drachillix said, Inkscape could do all of the drawings you referenced. Although for the sheep, I’d use a bitmap drawing program like Krita instead. For use it sounds like you should get Solidworks and download Inkscape and Krita for free.
Yes, but, I’m not allowed to choose other programs. The requirement is to use Autocad or Solidworks specifically. Or Microsoft Office and typical PC Accessories programs like PowerPoint and Paint, I should have said. At issue are rules blocking users from installing software or using alternative computers for security reasons.
You could probably fake Solidworks into doing something like this (making really flat parts) bit it would be incredibly clunky and not woth the effort. There is a wiring layout package specifically for creating wiring schematics and cable layouts, so it could do the last diagram in your list, but the others are better done in a vector graphics package like Visio or Inkscape, or a sankey diagram generator like Matplotlib.
As a parametric solid modeler, Solidworks is pretty decent, but as a generalized graphics software it is terribly inappropriate. I sympathize with your situation–I was once requested to produce complex image graphics and abstract surfacing using Pro/ENGINEER instead of using an appropriate software, and what should have take. a few hours took several weeks–but Solidworks is really not the tool for doing this. You’d literally be better off doing this in Word or PowerPoint, and I write this as someone who fucking hates when people do shitty diagrams in PowerPoint using manually placed graphic objects that are inevitably misaligned.
There is no way you could do the Sankey plot or the stadium layout in Microsoft Paint and have it produce a polished and professional result. Paint is fine for small pixel art or simple annotations if you don’t mind the crude palette control but it is not suited for complex charts or diagrams. Actually, a Sankey diagram generator should be used to create Sankey plots to maintain propotionality.
There are “portable” versions of Krita and Inkscape that are just a directory that you can save to a USB thumb drive and run from there, no installation on the PC needed.
If Napier is dealing with security protocols for defense contractors or similar requirements, thumb drives are definitely verboten, and for very good reason. Thumb drives are basically the reused hypodermic needles of malware distribution.
Napier, is it possible to request the installation of a commercial software product such as Visio which is intended for creating diagrams and other vector graphics? I’ve had similar issues and resolved it largely by becoming the de facto facility computer security authority and decided what could and could not be installed. Corporate IT didn’t like it, but after I made the business case that this was a requirement from our customer they relented and gave me admin rights. Unfortunately, that also came along with being the effective on-site tech support and I was happy when I hired someone else to take over those responsibilities, but at least I was able to get us the tools to do the work even though the corporate bean counters didn’t seem to understand why we couldn’t engineer everything in PowerPoint.
When last have you used Paint? It has pixel-size readouts, which are just fine for maintaining proportionality. And neither of those illos has complex palettes.
Well, if you’re okay with taking hours or days to put together a chart that I could do in Matplotlib in twenty minutes, go for it. But it makes about as much sense to produce vector graphics like flowcharts, Sankey plots, and complex circuit diagrams as it does to pay your heating bill by sending five hundred checks of twenty-five cents each to the gas company. And with a Sankey-type plot or similar proportional graphics you’d want it to update when you change input values or add a branch rather than redraw the entire chart from scratch every time something changes or you need to fit it into a different format.
While what that artist did with Paint looks really good, he really really worked way too hard at it. I’m thinking instead of using Photoshop’s dodge and brush tools, he painted each varying tone of skin pixel by pixel. Instead of using layers, he saved multiple versions of the artwork and copied & pasted selections. Instead of using masks, he manually drew selections using just his mouse. Instead of using layer effects, he actually painted the shadows. His method is really time consuming and requires a lot more artistic talent than the OP might have.
Kudos to his efforts, but he could have flown in a plane instead of walking.
Well, sure, if you want to keep the Sankey plot as an actual plot, you’d want that - or some 2D CAD or even just vector solution, at least. No question. I was just talking about reproducing those graphics as-is.
I would bring it up to management then, or at least have your IT department look into using Inkscape and/or Krita. Both are free, opensource and free of any spam or malware. I mean you could write a novel using AutoCAD, but you’d be much better off using Word.
