Ken Ronkowitz :: Blog :: Drawing From Charts to 3D

http://devel2.njit.edu/serendipity/index.php?/archives/281-Dra

Made in Sketchup

More and more online MS
Office-styled applications are showing up online for word processing & spreadsheets etc.

Another app that
I'm coming across are online ways of drawing flow charts, layouts, org charts, diagrams and even far more sophisticated
3D artwork.

So, I suppose some of these are alternatives to Microsoft’s Visio.

NJIT offers Visio to all
its students as part of our larger Microsoft licensing, so here it's not an issue of having the software
available.

Perhaps, you do not have access to Visio or similar software - OR - perhaps you find Visio too
difficult to learn. You might want to try using an online app.

OmniGraffle (from the
OmniGroup) is an interesting one (but it's for
Mac OS X). It's great that software like this gathers a community around it, so if you go to Graffletopia, you'll find many free downloadable
stencil sets for it from maps to science
or architecture - even Lego People and blocks.

http://devel2.njit.edu/serendipity/uploads/visio1.serendipityT" style="border:0px none ; float: right;
padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;" />Take this drawing up a few notches and you have Google Sketchup which is a powerful but fairly easy drawing system
that streamlines and simplifies 3D design.

If you use Google Earth, Google SketchUp allows you to place your
models using real-world coordinates and share them with the world using the Google 3D Warehouse.

Check out the
review of the commercial version of
Sketchup 5 that goes for $640 to get a good idea of what it can do, and what a deal it is to get the free
version.