drawing many block diagrams

I need to draw many block diagrams like the one attached. 
Because of
the number I need to create, I have previously used a
program called
diagraph which has a simple language for describing the
block diagram.
 It converts its input script to drawing commands in a Latex
picture
environment.  This works fairly well, but it is difficult to
get the
output to scale nicely.  That is my current problem: I am
trying to
use figures from my Ph.D. thesis in a two-column article,
and it isn't
going well.

I created the attached block diagram with ipe and it looks
great and
of course scales nicely.  But it takes a long time to create
it.

The input script to diagraph used commands like
R(1)
c("$ v $")
b(2,1,"$ G_p $")

where R(1) means create a right pointing arrow 1 unit long
with an
arrow head (use r for no arrow head), c("$ v$")
means label the
previous element with $ v $, and b(2,1," G_p $")
means create a box
that is 2 by 1 with $ G_p $ in the center of it.  The
language is a
bit weird at first, but it allows for very fast creation of
many of
these kinds of diagrams (creating the one ipe one by hand
took 20
minutes or so).

Is there an easy way to make ipe understand this kind of an
input
script and quickly create these kinds of diagrams?

Thanks,

Ryan

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On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 21:11 -0600, Ryan Krauss wrote:
> I need to draw many block diagrams like the one
attached.  Because of
> the number I need to create, I have previously used a
program called
> diagraph which has a simple language for describing the
block diagram.
>  It converts its input script to drawing commands in a
Latex picture
> environment.  This works fairly well, but it is
difficult to get the
> output to scale nicely.  That is my current problem: I
am trying to
> use figures from my Ph.D. thesis in a two-column
article, and it isn't
> going well.
> 
> I created the attached block diagram with ipe and it
looks great and
> of course scales nicely.  But it takes a long time to
create it.
> 
> The input script to diagraph used commands like
> R(1)
> c("$ v $")
> b(2,1,"$ G_p $")

It should be theoretically possible to write a script that
would
translate the diagraph input into the ipe xml syntax.
Unfortunately
diagraph does not seem to be an open source software, so the
above
cannot be easily achieved by simply modifying existing code.


As an alternative to diagraph, you may consider pgf/tikz
package.  Look
at some samples at
http://www.fauskes.net/pgftikzexamples/tag/block-diagr
ams/

> The language is a
> bit weird at first, but it allows for very fast
creation of many of
> these kinds of diagrams (creating the one ipe one by
hand took 20
> minutes or so).

I understand that describing these diagrams in some sort of
code and
having them automatically generated can be really fast.  On
the other
hand, with use of Ipe snapping modes, I believe these
diagrams can also
be created pretty fast.  I managed to get a docent
approximation of the
one you attached in about 5 minutes.  Granted, it wasn't as
pretty as
yours, mostly matching the size of the boxes with size of
the labels was
a bit problematic, but I believe that with more practice I
could be
drawing these pretty fast   

> 
> Is there an easy way to make ipe understand this kind
of an input
> script and quickly create these kinds of diagrams?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> Ipe-discuss mailing list
> Ipe-discusscs.uu.nl
> ht
tps://mail.cs.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/ipe-discuss
-- 
Jan Hlavacek (jhlavacesvsu.edu, 989-964-2004)
Department of Mathematics
Saginaw Valley State University
http://www.svsu.edu/~j
hlavace/

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