Illustration for Technical Books 1

[bdbd]

Hi,
I am very obsessed with creating good figures for reports and papers. I see that in some books they have these very well prepared figures, and I just wanted to ask you if any of you know the common softwarw that authors usw?
I can't believe if these are simple Autocads.

 

[1503-44]

Got an example of what form you like to see?

A black swan to a turkey is a white swan to the butcher ... and to Boeing.

 

[dik]

If they are building plans or sections and details, they can be autocad... and they can usually be imported into whatever software you are using. I often use the Windows 'snapshot' for cut and paste... works good with my Libreoffice writer software, or Adobe reader and the images are crisp.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[JedClampett]

I've got bookshelves full of books written and published before any CAD was available(most of them, anyway). A good manual drafter can do wonders. I don't doubt that for current books, the drawings are CAD.
Personally, I prefer a book with manual drafting. It shows a human touch and some personality. But I'm sure those days are long gone.

 

[Lomarandil]

Sketchup can be a great tool for generating 2D or 3D illustrations, and can be adjusted to be as precise or "sketchy" as desired.

For figures and charts, I'd expect many authors are using tools like Latex or something like Matlab/Matplotlib/etc. Excel or the OSx equivalent can also produce decent charts with some skill applied.

----
just call me Lo.

 

[Ron]

In my experience, the authors provide a rough sketch and the publisher has a group that turns it into something pretty for the book. At least that's what my publisher (Pearson) does. It sometimes takes a few edits to get it as the author intended.