Few months back i have written about Dia, being a good replacement for Windows Visio. Dia is and excellent open source free to use tool. Today i will talk about DRAW, a similar tool which can help you Draw Plans and Diagrams Online right inside a browser only without any need of any desktop application.
The application is developed by well know Autodesk Team. It can be used to
- create diagrams of any kind,
- floor plans (home and office),
- diagram furniture placemen –
- just about anything that you would need a sketch or layout for.
It has got a nice set of toolbar for different operations needed for proper drawing with features like drag and drop.
It lets you save diagrams on your system/ computer, using Export Diagram feature placed under the File menu. Also, it allows you to save your diagram to your computer in any of these formats: MMD/FMD (editable), JPEG, PNG, SVG, PDF, DWF(alpha) or DWFx.
Features include:
Project Freewheel integration – include your designs from AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, or any other DWF in your diagrams and use them like any other shape
Predefined shapes – drag and drop our vector shapes to create custom diagrams.
Save your diagram in editable formats.
Export your diagrams in a variety of formats, including DWF, DWFx, PDF, JPG, PNG, and SVG.
Cross-browser compatible – create a diagram in IE, open it in Firefox, or vice-versa.
Handles – drag the shape handle to stretch dimensions.
Linear, curved, and orthogonal connectors available.
Imperial and metric page sizes available.
Text tools, gradients, shadows, zoom, dimensions, snap-to-grid, and more – we’re adding new features all the time based on your feedback.
Dynamic images – embed images into web pages based on your diagrams. Update the diagrams and the images automatically update.
This Youtube video will show you the features in detail. Take a look.
Draw is completely browser-based and requires no plugins – no Java needed. The only additional thing you might need would be Google Gears – if and only if you use Draw’s offline.
Download Draw here.
July 25, 2009 @ 1:30 AM
Thanks for the great write-up! One clarification though – Draw is completely browser-based and requires no plugins – no Java needed. The only additional thing you might need would be Google Gears – if and only if you use Draw’s offline features.
July 25, 2009 @ 8:25 AM
Thank you for clarifying. I have updated this in the article.