Visualisation Tools

Anima

I spend a lot of time at work either trying to figure out my companies product or describing it to others.

I think for a lot of scenarios a diagram of sorts is much better than a block of text. Does anyone know of any free, quick and easy apps?

The question is opened ended also. Are there any visual tools you use that you think are beneficial to your work?

Thanks

Aswerty

Not sure how well suited this is but I use Gliffy although it is actually a pay per month app. It does give you a number of free diagrams as long as you're happy for them to be publicly available. What I often do will be to do up a diagram and then just print screen it and not save if it is something that is of a sensitive nature.

srsly78

Mspaint.

stevenmu

Visio (or alternatives like Gliffy) for fixed format diagrams. Mind mapping software for more flexible or on-the-spot stuff, I've only tried it once or twice but FreeMind seems ok.

Cork24

try Visio no the Mircosoft Version but their are free version of the same product some where around the Net.

fergalr

What sorts of diagrams?

If it is illustrative custom figures, Inkscape is a free vector drawing package. I wouldn't call it highly polished software, but it runs everywhere, and uses open formats, which is useful, and does 90% of the use cases.
You can also go a long way with openoffice draw.

If you have a budget, as previously recommended, check out visio.
If you are on OSX and again, are willing to pay, onmigraffle is really nice. http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnigraffle/


If you want to generate diagrams, Graphviz will generate diagrams and charts from code/data. http://www.graphviz.org/Gallery.php
This can be surprisingly useful; structured data, and a nice layout engine, can be used to make automate more diagrams than you'd think, and save a lot of time, particularly if the data is subject to change.
Or, generate the first cut of the diagram, then use inkscape to edit by hand.
This comes up a lot in a programming context: eg: http://www.graphviz.org/content/ER
I think more programmers should be automating their diagram generation.

If its more generic diagrams, pythons matplotlib can be used to auto generate a lot of stuff.

If you are talking about diagrams of UI mockups, or software mocks, Balsamiq is great.

Anima

Nice one guys. I'm mainly just drawing sequence diagrams and showing scenarios so I think visio might be what I'm looking for. I must check again if it's installed at work.

Graphviz looks interesting I should try it out as well.

Mspaint, couldn't live without it :pac:

croo

Dia is diagraming tool on the lines of Visio. It's basic but works.

Bonitasoft can create BPMN diagrams. Actually it can build whole applications with all kinds of integration based on these diagrams but I just used it as BPMN drawing tool.

ArgoUML is a nice too for, as its name suggests, UML diagrams. Many UML diagrams can be very effective is describing business processes.

All are open source... I have used and liked all.

Malice

In addition to those already mentioned, yEd is another tool that's worth a look.