Powerful drag and drop app for business people, engineers and architects.
SmartDraw, best known for creating diagrams for business, such as flowcharts and organizational charts—but also for easy drag-and-drop floor plans and schematics—has relaunched a desktop app that adds functionality and, according to the company, increases its user-friendliness over the online version.
The desktop app builds on SmartDraw’s web-based app to offer users another way to create diagrams and visuals. SmartDraw users can work on the web or on the desktop, whichever they prefer.
The desktop version sacrifices none of the web-based program’s capabilities, according to SmartDraw. Desktop users can access files created on the web-based app. Performance would be improved as the user is working locally.
SmartDraw has been creating diagramming software since 1994. The desktop version adds the ability to integrate with third-party apps and tools and generate diagrams automatically from their unique datasets. Infographics, organizational charts, flowcharts, project management diagrams and schedules, maps and engineering drawings are some of the templates the company makes available to users.
SmartDraw is capable of “CAD-like” drawings that are the same in appearance as those created with CAD programs. The app can be used to quickly develop electrical plans, HVAC drawings, circuit and wiring diagrams, welding details and power plant schematics. This is particularly useful for smaller companies that do not have the manpower or resources to dedicate to full-time CAD technicians and drafters. Homeowners can even experiment with SmartDraw to create their own floorplans, complete with detailed touches, such as furniture and décor, to really get a feel for their living space.
Using a tool like SmartDraw helps level the playing field and streamlines the process of creating basic engineering drawings. The engineering templates available in SmartDraw are helpful for creating simple plans and schematics that are standardized. These templates cannot serve as a full substitute for engineering plans and details, but they are a starting point to quickly convey system-level information. The new release adds automated symbols and line styles to make it even easier to create engineering drawings. Just simply choose from a toolbox full of common engineering symbols to add them to a line and quickly drag them into place on the sheet.
Developers can also use SmartDraw’s API to make custom applications, generating diagrams from data. The program is also very user-friendly, requiring very little experience or creativity to produce eye-catching visual aids. SmartDraw’s intelligent formatting engine maintains the diagram’s alignment as shapes or elements are moved or deleted. There are also automatic color schemes, sizing rules and spacing built into the program to help even the most left-brained engineers among our ranks produce visually appealing diagrams and infographics without too much stress.
SmartDraw claims that among its millions of application and users, 75 percent are Fortune 500 companies. Its program has tons of industry-specific shapes ready to drop into a drawing without having to resort to a real CAD program.
