[{"user_id": 8649, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300678311.4414041, "message": "I am in the midst of Googling for this, but I thought I'd ask to see if others know some off-hand.  My father is writing a physics book and he needs to be able to do nice diagrams.  Not quantitative plots, but rather 2D and 3D surface diagrams showing things like curvature and whatnot.  I think OmniGraphSketcher is pretty effective for 2D, but is there anything for 3D short of Mathematica + Inkscape?", "group_id": 6727, "id": 395020}, {"user_id": 7688, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300699156.4451909, "message": "I want to know if there's good software for this too.  I used pstricks for all my 2/3D schematics now.  The quality is good, but it's really time consuming.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 396858}, {"user_id": 21402, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300741262.0453341, "message": "You can use Visual Python to program the 3D objects, and then you can export that to a POVray model, which you can excellently render in high quality for publication output.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 402563}, {"user_id": 21157, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300749489.272717, "message": "You could also try Blender, which provides a full 3D modeling GUI as well as python-scripted graphics.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 403508}, {"user_id": 21157, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300749570.3125911, "message": "http://www.blender.org - main page; http://www.blender.org/documentation/248PythonDoc/ - python API; http://pycon.blip.tv/file/4880934/ - PyCon video on scripting Blender with Python", "group_id": 6727, "id": 403522}, {"user_id": 8649, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300755949.092556, "message": "Thanks for the ideas, guys.  I think Visual Python might be the best bet...", "group_id": 6727, "id": 404145}, {"user_id": 10411, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300768659.0171371, "message": "@pwang I took a look at Visual Python earlier today and it seemed like there was a lot of overhead.  I'd be interested in hearing your experiences.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 404919}, {"user_id": 21402, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300861278.7170701, "message": "I've used Visual Python quite a lot during my PhD thesis. I've done a bit at the Kiwi PyCon 2009 on it and other visualisation packages. So the stuff isn't 100% up-to-date anymore, but should still be quite useful: http://ojs.pythonpapers.org/index.php/tppm/article/view/121 and http://www.slideshare.net/XEmacs/python-data-plotting-and-visualisation-extravaganza", "group_id": 6727, "id": 414798}, {"user_id": 21157, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300886409.6096599, "message": "I would imagine that the author of a book would like some sort of GUI control (you mentioned OmniGraphSketcher for 2D diagrams, for example, which lets you drag around lines and whatnot). Does any 3D diagramming toolkit allow you to do that?", "group_id": 6727, "id": 417046}, {"user_id": 8649, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1300897289.103581, "message": "I've never seen any.  I think by the time you're moving stuff around in 3D, you're in Sketchup/AutoCAD/Maya/3DS territory.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 418545}, {"user_id": 23030, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1301210922.864017, "message": "@pwang does your dad run a Mac? For really simple 3D plots he might find Grapher.app sufficient.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 449970}, {"user_id": 8649, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1301283029.750448, "message": "He does have both a Mac and a PC.  Grapher.app is a great suggestion - it might be just enough to do what he needs.  His book is about cosmology & gravitation, so there are many diagrams with spheres and things on the surface of spheres that he wants to show.", "group_id": 6727, "id": 454536}, {"user_id": 21157, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1301341642.0599501, "message": "Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of a CAD-type program written in or scriptable by python?", "group_id": 6727, "id": 461404}, {"user_id": 20798, "stars": [{"date_created": 1302051680.956948, "user_id": 8649}], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1301951747.5419199, "message": "http://asymptote.sourceforge.net/", "group_id": 6727, "id": 529274}, {"user_id": 8649, "stars": [], "topic_id": 14148, "date_created": 1302051689.941577, "message": "@cfinch Thanks, that looks great!", "group_id": 6727, "id": 551640}]