5 ms·

Apparatus: graphics editor and programming environment for interactive diagrams

133 points by jarmitage 11y ago

antidamage 11y ago
Why doesn't it have an undo key?
- Animats 11y ago
  There's an undo menu item. It's kind of cute. It's more like a proof of concept, or minimal viable product, at this point. Bring it up to the level of Inkscape, so you can do most of the things .svg files can represent, and it will be useful. (Inkscape is a great piece of free software, one of the few pieces of free graphics software on Linux that doesn't come from a command line mindset. Also runs on Windows and Mac.)
  - archimedespi 11y ago
    Inkscape is awesome. Unfortunately one of the things its used for _a lot_ is designing for a laser cutter which is _not_ it's strong point: it can't really do precise stuff like you can in Solidworks with dimensioning and relations. I'd love an OSS solution for vector drawing that has dimensioning and relations, if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
    - friendzis 11y ago
      Maybe Antimony[1]? [1]: http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/
    - Animats 11y ago
      True. Inkscape, unfortunately, doesn't really understand dimensions. Internally, it uses "px" as a unit, although SVG understands "mm" and "in". Corel Draw is more serious about dimensions and units, which is needed when you're talking to a laser cutter. SVG users have asked for the opposite feature: roundoff to pixel boundaries, instead of floating point coordinates.[1] SVG's internal representation is a text string of a number with a decimal point, but it's up to the program writing the file to decide how many digits to put after the decimal point. And, of course, you'll get rounding errors going back and forth from text representation to internal floating point representation. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/951655 https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/951655
    - jononor 11y ago
      FreeCAD, http://www.freecadweb.org http://www.freecadweb.org I do basically all my CAD in it. For 3d-print, laser and milling, roughly in that order. For laser/millling you can either work directly with parametric 2d ("Part Design"), or work in 3d and then export 2d outlines (my preferred way).
- hornetblack 11y ago
  I think the Browser uses the under key for form fields. So the javascript doesn't see the ctrl+z events.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
endergen 11y ago
Definitely influenced by Bret Victor's talk/prototype: http://worrydream.com/#!/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalk http://worrydream.com/#!/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalk And credited so: http://aprt.us/#development http://aprt.us/#development Looks cool, on a plane without a PC. Will have to try it out when I land.
- hornetblack 11y ago
  Even this image has Bret listed as author: http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Star.json http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Star.json
  - mst 11y ago
    Also this one which is amazing: http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Potted%20Plant.json http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Potted%20Plant.json
euske 11y ago
This could be the best thing ever. I'm a guy who types in SVG diagrams manually. They're normally simple enough and it's easier to get the alignments when you type in the coordinates. But tools like this could change it. I'll keep eyes on this. Thanks for sharing.
- seivan 11y ago
  Yes! I've looked for something like this. I would love to use this to build UI on iOS. So far you have to resort to Paintcode that generates code but I rather have something agnostic.
joshmarinacci 11y ago
All of this stuff is coming out of SAP Labs. They've got some truly awesome people doing great work there. http://www.cdglabs.org http://www.cdglabs.org
vegabook 11y ago
I can only hugely commend the creators. Interactive charts for pedagogical purposes are a big win for me, as I work in a fairly complex domain where a moving picture can make all the difference between understanding immediately, and having to explain a static chart with 1000 long words. This beats animated gifs hands down and in my personal opinion, the interface is beautiful. Kudos and looking forward to embeddable.

133 points by jarmitage 11y ago

antidamage 11y ago

Why doesn't it have an undo key?

Animats 11y ago
There's an undo menu item. It's kind of cute. It's more like a proof of concept, or minimal viable product, at this point. Bring it up to the level of Inkscape, so you can do most of the things .svg files can represent, and it will be useful. (Inkscape is a great piece of free software, one of the few pieces of free graphics software on Linux that doesn't come from a command line mindset. Also runs on Windows and Mac.)
- archimedespi 11y ago
  Inkscape is awesome. Unfortunately one of the things its used for _a lot_ is designing for a laser cutter which is _not_ it's strong point: it can't really do precise stuff like you can in Solidworks with dimensioning and relations. I'd love an OSS solution for vector drawing that has dimensioning and relations, if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
  - friendzis 11y ago
    Maybe Antimony[1]? [1]: http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/
  - Animats 11y ago
    True. Inkscape, unfortunately, doesn't really understand dimensions. Internally, it uses "px" as a unit, although SVG understands "mm" and "in". Corel Draw is more serious about dimensions and units, which is needed when you're talking to a laser cutter. SVG users have asked for the opposite feature: roundoff to pixel boundaries, instead of floating point coordinates.[1] SVG's internal representation is a text string of a number with a decimal point, but it's up to the program writing the file to decide how many digits to put after the decimal point. And, of course, you'll get rounding errors going back and forth from text representation to internal floating point representation. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/951655 https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/951655
  - jononor 11y ago
    FreeCAD, http://www.freecadweb.org http://www.freecadweb.org I do basically all my CAD in it. For 3d-print, laser and milling, roughly in that order. For laser/millling you can either work directly with parametric 2d ("Part Design"), or work in 3d and then export 2d outlines (my preferred way).
hornetblack 11y ago
I think the Browser uses the under key for form fields. So the javascript doesn't see the ctrl+z events.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

endergen 11y ago

Definitely influenced by Bret Victor's talk/prototype: http://worrydream.com/#!/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalk http://worrydream.com/#!/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalk And credited so: http://aprt.us/#development http://aprt.us/#development Looks cool, on a plane without a PC. Will have to try it out when I land.

hornetblack 11y ago
Even this image has Bret listed as author: http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Star.json http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Star.json
- mst 11y ago
  Also this one which is amazing: http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Potted%20Plant.json http://aprt.us/editor/?load=doc/examples/Potted%20Plant.json

euske 11y ago

This could be the best thing ever. I'm a guy who types in SVG diagrams manually. They're normally simple enough and it's easier to get the alignments when you type in the coordinates. But tools like this could change it. I'll keep eyes on this. Thanks for sharing.

seivan 11y ago
Yes! I've looked for something like this. I would love to use this to build UI on iOS. So far you have to resort to Paintcode that generates code but I rather have something agnostic.

joshmarinacci 11y ago

All of this stuff is coming out of SAP Labs. They've got some truly awesome people doing great work there. http://www.cdglabs.org http://www.cdglabs.org

vegabook 11y ago

I can only hugely commend the creators. Interactive charts for pedagogical purposes are a big win for me, as I work in a fairly complex domain where a moving picture can make all the difference between understanding immediately, and having to explain a static chart with 1000 long words. This beats animated gifs hands down and in my personal opinion, the interface is beautiful. Kudos and looking forward to embeddable.