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Side note, for anyone wondering like I was, the visualization tool is Cloudcraft: https://cloudcraft.co/ https://cloudcraft.co/ . I'd love to have something si

Side note, for anyone wondering like I was, the visualization tool is Cloudcraft: https://cloudcraft.co/ https://cloudcraft.co/ . I'd love to have something similar for doing isometric views of any kind of diagramming.

casey_lang 9y ago
Every time I see Cloudcraft, I wish it was available for GCP. I think it's a fantastic way to visualize interconnected systems
- user5994461 9y ago
  Ah. I wondered what made these terrible diagrams. They look cute but the text and the symbols are incomprehensible.
  - jchw 9y ago
    Looks mostly comprehensible to me. A lot of the icons are obvious if you deal with this stuff a lot, like the ELB, Redis icons, and the ones with instance types written on them. Bit too zoomed out to read the small text, though.
    - philwelch 9y ago
      If they didn't have the precious isometric projection and just showed a regular 2D diagram it would be more legible.
learn_more 9y ago
Have a look at https://www.pathwaysystems.com/video/#racks1 https://www.pathwaysystems.com/video/#racks1 The video is a bit slow because it's meant to be instructional. There are other videos on the same page which show how the model (graph) can be viewed logically instead of isometrically (what we call spatially). I'm the CTO, happy to answer questions.
- shaunparker 9y ago
  The product looks pretty interesting, but I don’t see any pricing. What would it cost for a single user?
  - learn_more 9y ago
    Our marketing is currently geared towards teams, so our pricing starts at 12k USD/yr for a 10 user subscription. We haven't yet rolled out official individual pricing so I don't want to jump the gun here by announcing prematurely, but if you start a free trial and mention you're seeking a single user, we can discuss further via email.
smsm42 9y ago
I am not sure I get the point of making it (fake-)3D. Except for all text to be diagonal and me having to tilt my head to read it, and cute pseudo-3D pictures of variously formed boxes, I don't see any advantage. It's still essentially 2D - there's no third dimension I could usefully explore - it's just presented in a visually cute but informationally cluttering way. Is there any advantage to this form of presentation?
- epistasis 9y ago
  It's funny, I came to the comments to specifically complain about that graphic. There are significant disadvantages to the isometric view for that data, and absolutely no advantage that I can see, other than it looks pretty if you're not trying to get information out of it. I think that Tufte needs to make a resurgence with this generation of designers.
  - sneak 9y ago
    Take it up with BeOS? :D
    - epistasis 9y ago
      Hah, I think icons are the place isometric views work really well, actually! Lots of room for highly differentiated objects with an isometric view. However, text and interconnections and maps are really not great at these isometric angles. And I do really like the icons used in the figure in the original post, just not the whole.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  AWS has sometimes used in their diagrams, so everyone wants it when creating theirs. I work on https://www.lucidchart.com https://www.lucidchart.com (which has "only" 2D diagrams) and it's a common request. You're correct that 2D makes for greater readability and information density.
alexeldeib 9y ago
Love the visuals. Readability is less than great in some cases. I'd probably model my team's infrastructure this way and keep it as a reference to onboard new members and problem solve. Is the readability just due to the size that the images get reproduced at? If that's the case, it looks like the text isn't great on the "standard" size people reproduce the graphic in (landing page of your site), but it looks nice inside the editor (second section on your site, very crisp). Optimizing it for size, or scaling up the representation somehow would make this a lot more pleasant to look at for me.

casey_lang 9y ago

Every time I see Cloudcraft, I wish it was available for GCP. I think it's a fantastic way to visualize interconnected systems

user5994461 9y ago
Ah. I wondered what made these terrible diagrams. They look cute but the text and the symbols are incomprehensible.
- jchw 9y ago
  Looks mostly comprehensible to me. A lot of the icons are obvious if you deal with this stuff a lot, like the ELB, Redis icons, and the ones with instance types written on them. Bit too zoomed out to read the small text, though.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    If they didn't have the precious isometric projection and just showed a regular 2D diagram it would be more legible.

learn_more 9y ago

Have a look at https://www.pathwaysystems.com/video/#racks1 https://www.pathwaysystems.com/video/#racks1 The video is a bit slow because it's meant to be instructional. There are other videos on the same page which show how the model (graph) can be viewed logically instead of isometrically (what we call spatially). I'm the CTO, happy to answer questions.

shaunparker 9y ago
The product looks pretty interesting, but I don’t see any pricing. What would it cost for a single user?
- learn_more 9y ago
  Our marketing is currently geared towards teams, so our pricing starts at 12k USD/yr for a 10 user subscription. We haven't yet rolled out official individual pricing so I don't want to jump the gun here by announcing prematurely, but if you start a free trial and mention you're seeking a single user, we can discuss further via email.

smsm42 9y ago

I am not sure I get the point of making it (fake-)3D. Except for all text to be diagonal and me having to tilt my head to read it, and cute pseudo-3D pictures of variously formed boxes, I don't see any advantage. It's still essentially 2D - there's no third dimension I could usefully explore - it's just presented in a visually cute but informationally cluttering way. Is there any advantage to this form of presentation?

epistasis 9y ago
It's funny, I came to the comments to specifically complain about that graphic. There are significant disadvantages to the isometric view for that data, and absolutely no advantage that I can see, other than it looks pretty if you're not trying to get information out of it. I think that Tufte needs to make a resurgence with this generation of designers.
- sneak 9y ago
  Take it up with BeOS? :D
  - epistasis 9y ago
    Hah, I think icons are the place isometric views work really well, actually! Lots of room for highly differentiated objects with an isometric view. However, text and interconnections and maps are really not great at these isometric angles. And I do really like the icons used in the figure in the original post, just not the whole.
paulddraper 9y ago
AWS has sometimes used in their diagrams, so everyone wants it when creating theirs. I work on https://www.lucidchart.com https://www.lucidchart.com (which has "only" 2D diagrams) and it's a common request. You're correct that 2D makes for greater readability and information density.

alexeldeib 9y ago

Love the visuals. Readability is less than great in some cases. I'd probably model my team's infrastructure this way and keep it as a reference to onboard new members and problem solve. Is the readability just due to the size that the images get reproduced at? If that's the case, it looks like the text isn't great on the "standard" size people reproduce the graphic in (landing page of your site), but it looks nice inside the editor (second section on your site, very crisp). Optimizing it for size, or scaling up the representation somehow would make this a lot more pleasant to look at for me.