Greets All -- (did some searching to see if this was already a thread -- apologies if I missed).

1. First off Andrey -- WOW. I'm a practicing, licensed engineer, and this looks to be a fabulous tool. Most recently, tried to install my own Mathcad 2001i on a Windows7 machine. When I found that there are issues with doing this (and yes, there are workarounds), I began looking for alternatives... and stumbled on smath.

2. So now to the meat of my post: Has serious consideration been given to incorporating a lightweight vector-graphics sketching program into Smath? As I contemplate going through the hassles of installing Mathcad, a *major* deficiency of the program is in the front of my mind again: the *lack* of a vector graphics sketching utility in Mathcad. Mathcad purports to be an engineering or technical-calculation notebook, but has missed the boat on this one. With a basic sketching utility -- and I emphasize that it does *not* need to be fancy -- Smath could become *the* go-to tool for conceptualizing and documenting calculations. Shoot, I use excel Drawing extensively, and it suffices!

The questions of "where will such a tool come from / who will do the work?" is a valid concern. I did a little poking around. I note that Diagram Designer (Meesoft) is freeware -- maybe the author would be open to allowing incorporation of his code, or a plugin or something? This could be a nice option, since the interface is similar to the ubiquitous MS Office Draw utility, and it allows users to create their own templates. FWIW, I also saw EVE (www.goosee.com) is open source as of a year ago (quirky, and non-standard interface, but it is written in Assembly and demonstrates just how light a utility could be -- less than 100K!). Doubtless, there are others out there.

Just web around (something like "vector graphics sketching utlity Mathcad") and you'll see this glaring deficiency come up over and over. Technical people are *craving* this functionality, for good reason. Smath could hit it out of the park here. It's worth serious, serious consideration on the priority list.


Thoughts?

--Will

Hello Will,

I remember long time ago Mathcad had some SmartSketch LE version as a part of its installation. It was a lite weight drawing CAD software and it was removed from the Mathcad installation - do not know the reason (I am not sure if you still have it in your 2001i). Mathcad and SmartSketch could interact and therefore I am not quite sure what would be the reason of your suggestion to have some vector drawing feature inside SMath. Did you have in mind some kind of interaction as well? Otherwise, you could make your drawings in any other suitable software and I, personally, could not see any reason to have it in SMath - except if the math and drawing regions could interfere (exchenge data).

Just my thoughts,

Regards,
Radovan

Radovan -- thanks for the thoughts.

I do have the smartsketch component for my copy of 2001i. And I did try to use the smartsketch application (as others have) w/in Mathcad. A few thoughts in no particular order:

1. Working with Smartsketch was burdensome and quirky - it seemed like a great idea, but didn't work for me (and from webbing around, others concur). In order to make a "quick sketch", Smartsketch would have to fire up, and at least in my install, it was slow and buggy. I'm a pretty persistent and fairly adaptable user, particularly when I see the value in making something work. But even I ended up foregoing Smartsketch, and just reverted to creating illustrations in Excel, and referencing them (on this, see #2 below).

2. Ideally, in an "electronic engineering notebook," I need something where I can easily "evolve" my drawings. As an engineer, with my trusty notebook (the real, physical one), I sketch, indicate parameters, do calculations, learn about the system, refine sketches and add parameters (sometimes completely overhaul them), and refine my calculations as a result -- it is an iterative process, particularly early on, as I'm just digging in to a problem. My sketches are a learning tool, to get my system in front of my eyes. They are not perfect, but schematic. They evolve.
Because of this, inserting externally-generated sketches is not very helpful. Snapshots work if someone wants to *present* mature ideas, but they don't facilitate use of the Mathcad as a notebook for *developing* ideas. Simply consider the awkward workflow: If I learn something new about my system and need to update a sketch, I have to leave Mathcad, create or revise a sketch somewhere else, copy, paste back into Mathcad, and then generate or revise my calculations -- and do it all over again the moment I learn something new about the system (or find a mistake in my in my sketch, however small). This is a *big* reason why I haven't come to use Mathcad as the "notebook" that I'd hoped.

3. Regarding an active connection between my sketch values and calculations. For me (and judging from my webbing around -- countless others), this is not critical -- In fact, it don't prefer it. Would the option be nice? Sure. But the vast majority of the time, I don't need, and don't want the overhead with having to make a sketch "work just right" in terms of parameters being to scale, etc.

4. Back on Smartsketch -- a smaller point, but significant from a usability standpoint. The sketching interface was not as intuitive as a simple sketcher would be (at least for me. This is probably related to expanded functionality -- overhead associated with the program's power).

5. Beyond all this, Mathcad 2001i doesn't run natively on Windows 7 (or beyond, I would expect). And I'm not sure what grief I'm inviting by trying to get Mathcad *and* Smartsketch set up and talking to one another, when they were a bit temperamental to begin with.

Seriously, do some webbing on this, and I think you will be impressed at the widespread (I'm tempted to say universal) interest in this functionality in Mathcad. My suspicion is that they are (ironically) hindered from answering this need by the fact that they are now owned by PTC, who owns ProEngineer (one of the premier parametric Solid modeling programs). I wouldn't be surprised if they are in an "all or nothing" mindset, wanting to produce their own parameterized sketching utility within Mathcad, or nothing at all. It doesn't have to be that way.

For what it's worth, I'm not trying to overstate the need in order to get a pet-feature-request into Smath. I hope to use it increasingly in the future, regardless. I appreciate the tool for what it is, I understand it is the fruit of one (amazing) man's labor, and I understand that there is only so much room on a roadmap. However, I would suggest that this get a good hard look. It is more than "just another feature" -- it could actually be pretty disruptive. There is a whole community of people (Mathcad users) who are hungry for a tool which would do just what I'm talking about, and Mathcad has been mysteriously unresponsive for years. Andrey could cause quite a stir by filling this void (and gather an even bigger supportive following!)

Let me know your thoughts Radovan, or Andrey. 'Glad to share more thoughts from this end, for what their worth.

With much appreciation,
--Will

Hello Will,

After careful reading of your post, I do not have any arguments against it and just have to agree with you
I have to admit that you are quite right about Mathcad and SmartSketch.

By the way, I hope you've noticed that Insert|Picture|Create will produce an empty region and you can't do anything else about it but drawing some black freehand curves on it with the mouse. At the moment this is quite useless. I really do not know what were Andray's intentions about it, maybe an initial step to some drawing capabilities inside SMath. As he is working on SMath in here spare time, these features will have to wait for a while. In the meantime, you can just use SMath and insert pictures in the same way we are all used to - via clipboard or by Insert|Picture|From file

Regards,
Rdaovan

Thanks Radovan --
Here's a hope that Andrey can pull it off =]. Between sketching, and excel-like tables (and I haven't even begun to look at this functionality in Smath -- does it exist? But that's another topic =]), there are definitely opportunities for Smath to establish itself as unique and powerful, and even overtake Mathcad in some regards. And I believe I saw another thread on this topic as well (that is, how Smath might establish itself as more than a "me-too" product).

But I'm digressing =].

--Will

Will, may I ask what kind of capabilities/tools are you interested in? Could you pot some image? I am curious to know what sort of sketches you put on your sheets, It could even give ideas to the dev about the features you have in mind..

I'm sure the guru of graphics Ber7 could suggest some graphic features as well,
and maybe the dev is aware of mono libraries like Cairo and other .NET libraries for drawing

Kilele --

Wrote

Will, may I ask what kind of capabilities/tools are you interested in? Could you pot some image? I am curious to know what sort of sketches you put on your sheets, It could even give ideas to the dev about the features you have in mind..

Gladly! I should be able to provide an example or two. In fact, I've been working on a relatively simple force-balance problem at work that should illustrate. You'll see that I began with pencil and paper sketches and initial calcs, then moved to excel. Because I'm still slowed down by the Excel 2010 Ribbon interface (what we have at work), my Excel sketches were not as detailed as I prefer (I'm much more fluent at Excel 2003). Ideally, a user would be fluent enough in the sketching environment, that the sketch would be detailed enough to illustrate all the significant parameters used in their expressions, etc.

I'll plan to be back tomorrow then (provided work doesn't swamp me).
--Will

Okay, so here's an example. This happens to be a purely mechanical system, though I've used this approach for some electro-mechanical systems for as well (including some basic circuit elements, motors, etc). I've had to create sketch 'groups' in excel in order to simulate my own schematic symbols at times, which is why I value the ability to create one's own "templates." i suspect that such flexibility would likewise be valued by any who are sketching for this purpose.

--Will

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excel1.pdf (123 KiB) downloaded 212 time(s).

nice sketches, I know the vectorial programs you mentioned above: Meesoft and Eve, they are a sort of simplified Mmicrosoft Visio, embedding that feature in smath would be useful indeed, with a library of personal symbols.
A kinematic simulator would be even more spectacular, I imagine a visual editor to make animations like the ones of Ber7 but with drawing tools and pivots, it would be a simplified "Working Model 2d" with the option to show any static frame instead of the animation.

Yup, Meesoft's program, or something like it would be very useful, particularly because

1) It's interface is "familiar" (I know folks have arguments about interface, but if a goal is to make Smath an appealing and easy-to-adopt alternative, then I think emphasis should be placed on familiarity).

2) It allows one to extend the library, as you say. In this sense, the tool can 'grow' and adapt with a user. That said, I haven't worked with the templates in Meesoft's program yet, so I don't know how well templates work.

I do note also that Meesoft's Diagram Designer is not 'perfect' (at least in terms of how I would use it). For instance, rotating shapes is awkward (requires conversion of shapes first), etc. But the idea is there.


As far as a kinematic simulator -- could definitely be cool, but I'm guessing this would be more work, more resource-intensive, and (if not done carefully), could encumber the interface when trying to "just make a quick-sketch," which is what a lot of users want for the majority of cases. It seems best to focus on a simple vector sketcher initially. The boon is that this is a perceived (and real!) need in the community already. A simple vector sketcher could be implemented relatively quickly and easily (little or no new technology would need to be developed by Andrey -- particularly if he can hook up with a package that already does most of what we're talking about. Energy could be spent on making the integration robust, and fine-tuning the interface). And bang-for-buck, this could be a *big* win in distinguishing Smath.

More thoughts Kilele, or others? Andrey? (I know you're busy -- glad to dialogue with you on this if you have a little bandwidth).

--Will

I don't know if this C#.NET2.0 code is a good start point to develop a vectorial drawing tool integrated on SMath,
KLONK Drawing Board .Net drawing component

Wrote

I don't know if this C#.NET2.0 code is a good start point to develop a vectorial drawing tool integrated on SMath,
KLONK Drawing Board .Net drawing component

I've found this nice and simple web tool that may be of inspiration for incorporating drawing features :
http://www.digikey.com/schemeit
Give it a try, it requires registering but it is free.

Actually if Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) (there is a Net/Mono version called Xilium.CefGlue) could be used in SMath,
it might be possible to take advantage of Html5 open source code to make drawing plugins : shapesmith or openjscad

I am confident that still more than a couple engineers are seeking a simple sketch up tool for smath studio, so I would like to post a viable workaround I am using now. This workaround can become a very powerfull tool with some help from core members of this forum who know a thing or two about Smath Studio extensions.

To begin with I have to say that I have tried many ways of incorporating sketches - Using CAD and converting it to PNG, drawing in Gimp, inscape, I have even tried using Smath Modeller tool to come up with some sketches.

The solution I discovered can potentially become a great way to conviniently add a sketch to the workbook on as-you-go basis.

When you insert an "image" region in Smath it gives you an option to either import png/svg or you can double click the region to open a blank png file in windows viewer. Once you have done that in the top right corner of the viewer you can click "open" and open the file with editor of your choice (I like inkscape for making sketches). Once done editing, click save and the image will update in smath.

There is an inherent drawback of this sketching approach - png is a raster format and hence is not easily editable after creation. One can import svg file however this did not work for me (imported svg file did not show up in the image region). If one were to modify / create new "image" region where default imbedded file is svg that can be opened when double clicked, an inkscape (or other vector editing software) can be used to create and later modify sketches of any complexity.

What do you guys think?

Wrote

The solution I discovered can potentially become a great way to conviniently add a sketch to the workbook on as-you-go basis.

When you insert an "image" region in Smath it gives you an option to either import png/svg or you can double click the region to open a blank png file in windows viewer. Once you have done that in the top right corner of the viewer you can click "open" and open the file with editor of your choice (I like inkscape for making sketches). Once done editing, click save and the image will update in smath.

There is an inherent drawback of this sketching approach - png is a raster format and hence is not easily editable after creation. One can import svg file however this did not work for me (imported svg file did not show up in the image region). If one were to modify / create new "image" region where default imbedded file is svg that can be opened when double clicked, an inkscape (or other vector editing software) can be used to create and later modify sketches of any complexity.

What do you guys think?

What you discovered is exactly the intended use of the edit feature added by Kay Graubmann to the image region, see the announcement. It is somewhat hidden in the interactive book (under [?]> Plugins> Image Region, please ignore the error message, in the current version there is an image file missing, I fixed that in SVN now)

I understand you have the feature request to be able to set the image format prior to open the editor. This should be quite straighforward, although currently we cannot rely on Kay implementing this.

The initial choice for png was due to the availability of a slim png editor under Windows (paint). For svg images, I tried inkscape, which takes quite a while to open, thus it is not exactly quick sketching. I just was happy to avoid the "no erase" picture region for sketches.
BTW, I use math regions for labeling the sketches, see attachment.

As for the svg-problems, could you please file a bug report in the bug tracking system with the sm-file and the offending image file. If you are not sure if it is really a bug, you might post it first in the image region topic.

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I most definitely missed the announcement for the region (was not using Smath than). On a bright side this thread is the first thing that comes up when you search for Smath and sketching so I am sure someone will find this info useful.

Anyway for creating svg (and in particular making sketches) software "Dia" is pretty great - it comes with many embedded shapes/objects, opens very fast and can export to svg. It can open svg files as well however its native format is .dia. This sketch took less than a minute to produce and can be edited later on in "Dia".

LibreOffice Draw is also very quick and quite powerfull once you enable all the toolbars you need. It also works very well with svg format. It would be great if there was an easy way to choose either png or svg format for this region as an empty drawing.

P.S.: what attachment are you referring to in "BTW, I use math regions for labeling the sketches, see attachment"? .sm file or drawing?

Thanks!

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Wrote

Anyway for creating svg (and in particular making sketches) software "Dia" is pretty great - it comes with many embedded shapes/objects, opens very fast and can export to svg. It can open svg files as well however its native format is .dia. This sketch took less than a minute to produce and can be edited later on in "Dia".

Thanks for the hint. I had a look at Dia. Not bad, main drawback is that this would not just be a new file format but the image region also would have to make Dia export the image to some graphics format for display in the document.

I use TpX/Latex if high quality labels are required. It saves the image as latex snippet. This approach requires a working latex installation and would create another external dependency.

Quote

It would be great if there was an easy way to choose either png or svg format for this region as an empty drawing.

I filed a feature request (SS-222). You may vote for it.

Quote

P.S.: what attachment are you referring to in "BTW, I use math regions for labeling the sketches, see attachment"? .sm file or drawing?

just the image...

After careful reading of your post, I do not have any arguments against it and just have to agree with you Good
I have to admit that you are quite right about Mathcad and SmartSketch.

By the way, I hope you've noticed that Insert|Picture|Create will produce an empty region and you can't do anything else about it but drawing some black freehand curves on it with the mouse. At the moment this is quite useless. I really do not know what were Andray's intentions about it, maybe an initial step to some drawing capabilities inside SMath. As he is working on SMath in here spare time, these features will have to wait for a while. In the meantime, you can just use SMath and insert pictures in the same way we are all used to - via clipboard or by Insert|Picture|From file

Regards,
Radovan
____________________________

I never posted stuff about "Create Picture", I'm not so much in sketching.
This facility is gorgeous but limited as it does not animate. Superb for publishing
and class room. Slide in a live quick plot, it is live, slide in a result from
live project ==> see the result change in the picture region. Draw something
from another application ==> transit/paste your sketch in picture region.
Slide in an abstract = = = => classroom done.

SmartSketch was an independent application that Mathcad 8 Pro. accessed from
Mathcad work sheet. It was abandoned in 2001i as well as MathConnex and Splus.
At the time of SmartSketch [from Intergraph] there was no freeware CAD,
except Intellicad. Intergraph sent me a free CD just from chating by mail !

World changed between 1980-1985. I that period:
1. Wavelets [Morlet/Grossman/Mallat [FBI jumped on that for finger prints,
soon MPEG for movies applications ...]
2. Bézier/Bernstein/De Casteljau: curve fabrication [ enabled smoothing fonts,
PDF documents, all CAD packages, soon after art drawing SVG ...]

Assume Bézier curves birthday 1985: in 1987 [in that two years laps] Intergraph
had their system up running so fine [ 1.2 m long cannon CRT, green on black]
My Technicians were so skilled on that ! HP was spitting big drawings scaled
as I wished for taking smaller size in-situ.

An interesting application: Modelica [my son uses, not me]

Cheers, Jean

... forgot the most important feature of "Picture region"
For publishing: it reads like some languages <= right to left.
Put the picture region stuff on the left of the Smath work sheet,
and all the project on the right of the picture region, everything
updates in picture region. Something like Mathcad global definition.


Jean