So I put together simple MP program that has converted my input data (vertices and edges of the polygons as just numbers) into beautiful images. True, it would probably be quicker in the end, but I hate manual work I rather spend much longer learning some programming language and then just code all the work in few minutes. There was a huge number of those polygons to draw, so I quickly abandoned all hope of trying to draw them by hand in Inkscape or something similar. I used MP to create some polygons on a hexagonal lattice in the context of cluster expansions. You can draw two curves $X(t)$ and $Y(t)$ (defined most comfortably as splines) and tell MP to compute their intersection, draw a point there and label it with some text it can solve equations This is a real killer that no one else offers.it contains excellent image manipulation facilities you can say things like 'take this image, scale it up by two and rotate it by 60 degrees'.

it's primitives are things like points, lines, paths, splines.it's vectorial (this should probably go without saying but still).It's on par with TeX in being a little hard to learn but once you do master the basics you won't believe you could have ever used anything else (in particular, GIMP and Inkscape good analogy here would be to TeX vs. I'll interpret your term diagram as 'any fancy image that captures some physics'.įor this I can hardly recommend anything else then MetaPost. Please recommend few pieces of softwares if they are good for different situations. the ability to run through a loop that draws a series of lines with a varying parameter). Moreover, minimal programming functionality would be nice additional feature (i.e. While I would like to hand-draw and drag-and-drop pre-made shapes, I also want to specify the exact locations of curves and shapes with equations when I need better precision. I am looking for a tool with high flexibility and minimal learning curve/development time. So, which tools are commonly used by physicists? What are their good and bad points (features, ease of use, portability, etc.)? The only other tools I know are Microsoft Paint and the tools built into Microsoft Office. I know some people use LaTeX, but I am not quite sure how versatile or easy it is. I usually hand-draw things in GIMP which is powerful in some regards, but it is time consuming to do things like draw circles or arrows because I make them from more primitive tools. Undoubtedly, people use a variety of programs to draw diagrams for physics, but I am not familiar with many of them. It is not currently accepting new answers or interactions. This question and its answers are locked because the question is off-topic but has historical significance.

Draw me physics 1