Writing a math textbook, program to draw diagrams?

[Fellowroot]

Hello, I am wanting to write a math/physics book or possibly a PDF online book and I'm wondering if anyone knows of any programs that exists for making pictures and drawing diagrams.

I not just looking for something to make x-y graphs or 3-D graphs, I'm looking for something that designed for custom problems like drawing a truck driving down a hill or a person throwing a baseball.

Do the people who make the texts books use programs to make drawing these things easier?

Or do they just use like photoshop or some vector based program and then import that image into the actual textbook.

Thanks.

 

[jedishrfu]

Depending on the type of drawing you might have to use different apps.

As an example, working on an ipad I would use PROCREATE to draw some fancy artwork, Myscript Mathpad to draw equations and expressions or inkpad to draw vector drawings. I also might import a photo and massage it into a cartoon or use it as a template to make my drawing.

Having the exported drawing, I'd import it into the Pages app to make my chapter.

For windows and others OSes there are similar programs with the most notable free one being Gimp.

 

[Fellowroot]

Just to give everyone here a better idea of what I'm talking about. Here are some examples of the types of images and diagrams that I'd like to make. I'm wondering if there exists a specialized program that can make creating these diagrams easier.

 

[Borek]

CorelDraw or any equivalent.

 

[SredniVashtar]

Inkscape
It's free, open source and produces vectorial graphics that you can reuse and or adapt without having to redraw from scratch. You can then build your own library of objects and getting more proficient the more you use it.

Here are a few more alternatives, rigged at physical diagrams.

If you have money, Adobe Illustrator.

 

[homer]

I always draw diagrams like that in inkscape. Very easy to use and exports beautifully to .eps format for putting into LaTeX generated postscript or pdf.

 

[jedishrfu]

Tools which export SVG (scalable vector graphics) would be good to consider too as that will go well with web pages.