[OS X TeX] making pictures, was "Should I install X11"

[Chris Goedde]

On Jun 23, 2006, at 6:13 AM, Robert Bruner wrote:
>
> Cool!  I had no idea this was lurking in my machine.  So much to learn,
> so little time.  This seems to be a lot like Xfig, in that you draw
> each bit you want, rather than writing code to produce it as in XYpic.
> It looks like you can produce your own template of arrows, etc, for
> commutative diagrams and such.  The sorts of things a mathematician
> might want don't seem built in.  I'll have to learn how to incoporate
> its output into TeX;  xfig produces encapsulated postscript (and LaTeX)
> which you can include quite simply and portably.

I switched from xfig to OG about a year ago or so. OG is indeed very 
cool. As Tim Hodgson noted, OG can export to various formats. (I 
switched from tex+dvips+gs to pdftex at the same time I switched to OG, 
so I export in pdf.)

I don't know what kind of math you do, so I don't know what you'd like 
to see "built in", but it's fairly simple for someone with 
mathematical/technical skills to create new shapes for use in OG. For 
example, I've created sine waves, parabolas, helices, etc, that I can 
use right alongside rectangles and ellipses. Stencils are very cool as 
well.

Chris

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