SmartDraw for CAD Users

SmartDraw is sold as software tool for drawing business diagrams such as organization charts, flow diagrams, business reports and presentations. However the drafting professional is often called upon to produce all kinds of graphic illustrations for the firm. Some are technical and some are required specifically for non-technical purposes. However, the criteria for such illustrations is firstly that they look great and secondly that they can be done quickly and easily.

At first glance SmartDraw is really well equipped to do all kinds of business diagramming. SmartDraw has been around for a few years now and continues to improve with each release. (see Geoff Harrod’s review from 2000). 

SmartDraw’s major strengths include:

• Ease of use – Drag and drop drawing, intelligent connections
• Powerful facilities – Image Plug-In, DWG, DXF plus other format import, customizable libraries.
• Extensive symbol libraries – Vast store of technical and illustrative symbols.
• Low cost under US$270 for the full and complete package (Smartdraw Professional Plus and Image Plug-in).

SmartDraw can certainly create great looking pages. Having access to a monster load of pre-drawn imagery is part of the solution here. Making up a diagram of any kind is just a matter of dragging graphic items onto the drawing sheet. SmartDraw’s full collection of symbols is staggering. It covers a very diverse range of subjects from the light-hearted for informal use to the serious for business use, and everything in between. Add to this the ability to import CAD drawings and it becomes a very useful tool for technical users.

The SmartDraw interface packs a lot of info on the screen. In practise the Exploer can be closed when you have selected the libraries you will use. The drawing page is shown here wih the grid turned on. The technical drawing in the page is a DWG file import.

It is very easy to use and follows the established conventions for click-and-drag editing, handle re-sizing and so on. I was able to create drawings in SmartDraw without reference to any assistance whatever. OK I’ve used a few of these programs before, but I’m here to tell you that they don’t all work as easily as SmartDraw.

There are finer points to learn as with any software. This is where we get to test the Help system. SmartDraw’s help system is very good. Every term I searched for was detailed and cross-referenced. Help systems can be an afterthought with some software. Someone’s put a lot of energy into creating a great help file for SmartDraw.

SmartDraw's help file is very, well, helpful!

An essential requirement is the ability to output a good-looking document whether to DTP, word-processing, or even a presentation program. Your regular CAD program simply cannot deliver the goods in this situation. SmartDraw covers all these bases with its ability to out put to a range of bitmap formats, (TIF, JPG, PNG, GIF, etc) and vector/hybrid formats like EPS, CGM, WMF, DXF and AI. Just for good measure you can also export PDF and HTML format (multi-file output) for web-ready presentations.

What the technical user needs to know is how well SmartDraw is going to work with the technical information created in CAD and engineering software. After all, the purpose of most engineering presentation drawings is to repackage the information contained in engineering drawings into a form that is more easily understood by non-technical people and made more attractive to look at into the bargain.

The bane of engineering drawing is translation between software applications. OK, it’s not essential to get a precision version of a CAD drawing into SmartDraw, but when we have a DWG file from AutoCAD that we want to use, we really just want to place it in the page without jumping through too many hoops. After all, we are trying to save time here! I can safely report that doing just that is a piece of cake. We successfully placed DWG and DXF files from both AutoCAD and IntelliCAD into Smart Draw. SmartDraw has a panel that allows you to configure how the import is processed.

The DWG pre-import dialog provides a few handy controls over the import.

There is a proviso in that SmartDraw only accepts AutoCAD Release 13 DWG format or earlier. This is not normally a problem as AutoCAD and IntelliCAD can both save to this format anyway. SmartDraw Professional and Professional Plus include the DWG import facility

We also tested DXF imports and found that AutoCAD 2000 ASCII and binary DXF formats slurped in without a hitch. Officially SmartDraw only supports Release 14 DXF, so bear this in mind.

It’s worth noting that the purpose of bringing DWG files into a SmartDraw page is only to add existing technical drawings. SmartDraw is not intended to be a substitute technical drawing tool or a program for making precision engineering drawings.

A key reason for importing CAD drawings is to create matching SmartDraw symbol libraries. It’s quite feasible that schematics and flow diagrams can be created in SmartDraw quicker and easier than in a typical CAD package and at a lower cost per seat.

Default installation brings up Hints and SmartDraw Advisor boxes automatically. These provide the beginner user with plenty of handy advice on how to use the tools they have selected. SmartDraw is fast to learn so before long you will want to turn these off. Do so in the SmartDraw Options dialog panel (Tools>Options).

SmartDraw Hint and Advisor windows automatically open on cue when you are getting to know the program. This behaviour can be stopped after a while when you get up to speed.

Selected symbol sets can be dragged out on to the working area and SmartDraw Explorer closed if you need to regains some drawing territory back.

Attachment points are common enough in similar drawing programs, but I really like the number of attachment points that SmartDraw gives you and the ability to define additional attachment points as required. Modifying the symbol in a Symbol Editor Dialog does this.

Symbol behaviour can be modified in the Symbol Editor.

I missed toolbars for formatting text and manipulating shapes. There’s something for the wish list.

Libraries and templates (pre-existing drawings for you to modify) as accessed using the SmartDraw Explorer. This is a resource tree that opens on the left-hand side the drawing pane. It’s searchable in case you can’t immediately find the symbols you are looking for. A search opens the explorer with matches highlighted with a binoculars icon.

This extract of search results in the SmartDraw Explorer shows the folder tree expended where necessary and matches highlighted with the binocular icon.

The full complement of symbols and templates ships standard with SmartDraw Professional Plus and is available as an extra option for users of Standard and Professional. The full library is well worth getting at the outset. Just having all those symbols on hand makes it so easy to put any kind of drawing together in no time.

The unique SmartDraw Image Plug-In (ships in the Suite package or as an add-on to regular SmartDraw editions) allows you to manipulate any kind of bitmap image right inside SmartDraw. The timesaving here is considerable, as the alternative would be to edit the image separately in a bitmap editor and then re-import into SmartDraw.

A sample page of odds and ends created in SmartDraw. This page includes DWG and WMF technical drawing imports. Also includes a a few photographic images and a sampling of symbols from the provided libraries. 

We also output this page to PDF (click here) and as HTML (click here). The PDF output is not quite as we expected, with some font mapping problems and problems clipping the DWG hatch data. The hatching problem is resolved by using DXF or WMF import of the CAD data.

What is a software package that can’t be customized? SmartDraw allows you to define your own symbols and create your own templates and libraries. We didn’t get a chance to experiment with that aspect yet, but look out for a future article on this subject.

SmartDraw includes a facility to convert files from other charting applications such as Visio, ABC Flowcharter, Micrografx, FlowCharter PDQ and AllClear. This could be handy if you already have a seat or two of another program in the office. Note that the parent program is required on the machine you are doing the conversion on – this is not a standalone process.

If you’re called upon to produce the presentation graphics in your organization, then SmartDraw is one tool you must have in your kit. It’s ability to pull CAD and office type documents into a presentation page format is great and will save you countless hours translating or otherwise reworking the data you normally use.

Whether you are producing printed documents of PowerPoint slideshows, SmartDraw gives you plenty of the output options you need to get the ideas in front of people.

Well recommended to designers and technical users everywhere.