tikz is cools since it generates varios types of diagrams which can be parametrized. However, it is necessary a lot of time to know it all in depth. I usually use yEd (http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html). It is very simple and really helps me a lot to generate very good diagrams.

I use Inkscape for all the illustrations beyond Matlab plots, but I'm interested to hear about alternatives.

Using Textext in Inkscape was ok to write vector graphics equation in Inkscape. However after the new version Inkscape 0.48 in Windows, textext cannot work in Inkscape. I want to learn Tikz as well.

Tikz gives good quality and also Mathematica good as well.But with Mathematica ,the quality of the image is an issue as it worsens once we scale the image in Latex.

Thank you all for your input!

Actually, I started using Corel Draw many years ago, and now I use Inkscape. However I'm starting to like Tikz, as it allows you to do very nice things. Nevertheless, it is complicated to do it all using commands, as sometimes, simple things can become very complicated.

You can find a ton of examples in: http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/

There is the possibility of drawing 3d illustrations (though shown in 2d, of course), using the package "tikz-3dplot", e.g., http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/seismic-focal-mechanism-in-3d-view/

What I would like to have is the easiness of Inkscape and similar software, with the level o latex integration (for instance using my own math macros) provided by Tikz.

For drawing illustrations, diagrams; Dia (https://live.gnome.org/Dia) is a perfect solution. This is free and it can produce vector graphics quality regardless the size.

I feel very happy with Inkscape for drawing and chart editing, Pencil project and VeusZ for sofisticated charts

I use Corel Draw but it takes much time to get good quality.

There is also the project TikzIt, which produces a tikz image with a GUI environment, that you can then edit in a latex editor: http://tikzit.sourceforge.net/manual.html

Using Tikzit is still limited, running on Mac OS. I am waiting the linux version. Corel draw ok but not free...

I do not prepare vector graphics myself but as I looked at different SW tools, it seems to me that asymptote is also promising.

tikz is cools since it generates varios types of diagrams which can be parametrized. However, it is necessary a lot of time to know it all in depth. I usually use yEd (http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html). It is very simple and really helps me a lot to generate very good diagrams.

Corel draw is cheap and powerful but if you are looking for simple drawings, you can beat SmartDraw and Visio

Now my Inkscape in windows 7 system has LaTeX formula activated. I have documented the steps here:

http://waluyo-adi-siswanto.blogspot.com/2012/11/latex-formula-in-inkscape-windows-7.html

Perhaps this will be useful.

Great post, Waluyo Adi Siswanto! I was not aware of this possibility to use latex formulas in Inkscape. As I'm using Ubuntu 12.10, your comment about how to achieve this for Ubuntu was specially useful. As you describe it, I just have to install the package "pstoedit" and then the latex formula option will be available in Inkscape under the menu "Extensions->Render->Latex formula". It also gives you the possibility to use additional packages, although I'd also like to use my own macros.

Thanks!

For other than data graphs, Adobe Illustrator is a great, but high-end, solution. Highly capable and feature filled. Exportable to a large number of formats. For data presentation, I use Insightful S+.

As others here, I also use Inkscape because its fileformat is SVG, which is an XML dialect (a text-based format) This means you can easily generate this format from any script. For example gnuplot has an option to output to SVG (basically all the plots you see in Wikipedia are plotted this way), and then you can make the plots nice in Inkscape.

MS Visio has been useful for electronics and communication systems, but it's best to make a good template of reusable symbols. Also, you have to allow things only to snap to the grid (and not objects etc.) or things get out of hand quickly.

I use TikZ for all illustrations in all my publications. While I am not very religious about LaTeX as such, using TikZ has very clear advantages, such as the consistent use of math/text fonts in the body of the text and the figures, and (of course) the same repertoire of mathematical symbols one uses (or defines) in the text. Structuring and refactoring figures with the "scope" environment is very handy. Resizing and fitting figures with "\scalebox" etc. is super easy. For a paper up to some 40 pages, I also like to keep all of my LaTeX source in a single file, and TikZ fits here nicely too. There are certain situations where TikZ (as a programming language of a sort) brings clear advantages over point-and-click drawing packages, such as its "\foreach" loop which is often super-handy for drawing sequences and grids. Actually, the foreach construct is so useful, that even when not using TikZ, I include "\usepackage{pgffor}" to include a list of sections/chapters in a book, etc. Recently I have started experimenting with writing my presentations in HTML5 (with all these nice 3Deffects), but I still use TikZ for figures, exported via SVG.

I just use MS Powerpoint to draw simple ones. For complated ones, Corel Draw is OK.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

PowerPoint

CorelDraw

GIMP (freely distributed at www.gimp.org)

Inkscape (freely distributed at www.inkscape.org)

NOTE: vector EPS figures generated using LaTeX are not acceptable.

To Davood Zaeifi: AFAIK Adobe Photoshop and GIMP are not vector tools, they are used for bitmap images although paths created in GIMP can with some effort be exported in a vector form. LaTeX is not a graphic tool at all and cannot in principle create EPS. You can either create DVI and then use dvips with the -E option or use dvipdfmx or directly pdflatex to create PDF and then by pdftops with the -eps option create EPS (pdftops is a part of xpdf and poppler). In thermodynamics we know that what is important is tha state, not the way how it was reached. It is the same with EPS. No matter which tool was used to create it the vector EPS file after all macro expansions will contain the same "lineto", "linerel", "curveto", "rrcurveto", "arc" operators that will be followed by the "stroke" operator, or if the path is closed by the "closepath" operator, any of the fill family operators may be used to fill it. The TikZ package is developed in layers, the user layer, the logic layer, the driver layer. Due to this layered design the driver layer can be adapted both to use pdftex primitives and postscript specials. Unlike Corel Draw, nether dvips nor pdftex will change fonts into curves. There is a good reason for this behaviour. All three stems in "m" must have equal width. If line thickness is one pixel greater or less, no one will notice but if one stem in "m" is one pixel thinner or thicker, it is visible even at 1200 dpi. That is why hinting is used in fonts. If the font characters are converted to curves, hinting is lost and the quality of the text suffers. Of course, the fonts must be embedded at least as a subset.

Note: EPS may contain bitmaps too and Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw as well as LaTeX can include bitmap images and the resulting EPS will contain bitmaps. Both dvips and pdftex can also use bitmap fonts. Thus it is the matter whether the font maps are configured properly to embed Type1, TrueType or OpenType fonts, or whether they allow to not embed fonts or use METAFONT bitmap fonts.

I use MATLAB to create figures and then export it to TIKZ using this script:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/22022-matlab2tikz

I usually use Tikz (or pgf commands if needed), which as said in previous replies has many advantages. Among the thing I find useful is the possibility to compile using all TeX compilers (no need to bother with image formats being compatible, i.e., put in .eps or .pdf etc.), which is not possible with pstricks, the compatibility with gnuplot and the fact that you can easily embed it in Beamer presentations. It is the best option I know of if you really want flexibility and to have figures that will always looks good (and making basic drawings is quite straightforward... of course, like all programs, knowing it thoroughly takes time).

Otherwise, my preferred wysiwyg would be inkscape (open source and quite easy to handle for not too complex tasks).

I exploit

GIMP (free www.gimp.org)

Inkscape (free www.inkscape.org)

for diagrams and similar things and I use Matlab and gnuplot for simulation results.

In my latest publications, I'm starting to prefer more and more the use of Tikz figures. Take a look at some very useful tikz resources at http://www.texample.net/tikz/resources/.

The QTikz/KTikz editor seams to be usefull to preview in real-time the result of your code, but a mixed WYSIWYG and code application would be awesome! Anyone knows something like this?

I'd also recommend Tikz. It is not really easy at the beginning, but once you get familiar with it, your drawings become awesome!

And I use R (http://www.r-project.org), which can help in creating various professional graphs; exporting them to EPS is easy as pie (though for me its much easier to make an EPS in R than to make a pie).

It is also not that easy to use, but will be very useful to anyone who needs to work with statistics and make graphs. I myself work with both, but I heard there are people who use it only because of its usefulness for data visualization.

Corel Draw for line drawing of a geometric nature, and I tend to stick to Corel Draw by habit.

I tried Adobe Illustrator, but the way of working is just too different and would require too much effort to learn, since Corel Draw already works fine for me.

Gimp is not quite there yet for me, and although relatively powerful and versatile, development is slow, so the gap between Gimp and commercial editors is not decreasing. But I keep watching it.

For equations, Microsoft Equation Editor (part of the Office suite) does everything I need, and is actually quite powerful and easy to use.

I don't use Latex, and don't find I am missing anything because of this.

Check this page http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/158668/nice-scientific-pictures-show-off for an impressive show-off of scientific illustrations made with LaTeX packages (mainly Tikz).

Inkscape for 2D and Blender for 3D pictures.

Blender for animations

For instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RasemoYzsFA

Use of inkscape software will be helpful in this regard.

It is free vector graphics software available for multiple platform where you can edit any kind of vector graphics content

Hi,

I found Matcha.

An user friendly online solution for Tikz.

See www.mathcha.io

Have a nice day

JC

I recommend ipe drawing editor. You can get it here http://ipe.otfried.org/

I draw a few vector diagrams with Inkscape and it wasn't bad. An open source option but it has some problems compared with commercial alternatives.

I do recommend you to use MATLAB software for illustrations drawing because MATLAB is one of the strongest software in that area.

I use LaTeXDraw (http://latexdraw.sourceforge.net/). It outputs the vector graphics to PSTricks code, pdf or ps.