The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Visio Technical
Bernadette Houghton
 bernieh@iaccess.com.au

Visio Technical is not so much a CAD (computer aided design) application as a 2D drag and drop drawing program. You create drawings by dragging shapes from a series of stencils then resizing, gluing and otherwise manipulating them. So-called shapes include walls, dimensions, scales, text and so on, so in theory you can create an entire drawing by dragging and dropping shapes. Visio ships with 2000+ ready-made shapes, called SmartShapes, covering fields such as space planning, electrical, mechanical and electronic engineering, home and landscape planning and more. You can also create your own.

Visio has full Microsoft Office 97 compatibility, but you can elect to work with Lotus SmartSuite-compatible toolbars. There are two versions of Visio bundled in the one package; version 4.5 and 4.1, with 32-and 16-bit code respectively. Unless specified otherwise, this review covers both versions.


Figure 1. Visio's main screen displaying mechanical engineering SmartShapes in the stencil on the left


Figure 2. A ShapeSheet for a gear SmartShape

Main Features

SmartShapes, the building blocks of Visio, are programmable shapes with real-world behaviour. Stretch a bolt in any direction, for example, and it resizes proportionally; stretch the tail of an arrow, and only the tail resizes. You control the SmartShape by manipulating its control handles or programming its ShapeSheet. ShapeSheets define a shape's properties and behaviour, such as dimensions, angle and how it behaves when moved or double-clicked. You can link shape properties; by linking the colour of a bolt to its dimensions, for example, you can indicate whether the bolt is within tolerance.

Visio supports standard drawing features, including rotation, aligning and stacking objects and snapping to grids, rulers, shapes and guide lines. You can join shapes in various ways, colour them and copy formats from one shape to another. Visio supports multiple layers and auto-matically assigns many shapes to specific layers; when you add the shape to the drawing, Visio adds the layer as well. You can control layer colour and whether layers will act as active snaps, be visible, printed or locked. You can also assign shapes to multiple layers.

There are some nifty time-saving tools. Distribute Shapes positions shapes an equal distance apart. Array Shapes creates duplicates then changes the copies when you alter the original. You can also duplicate shapes at specified offsets and lay out charts and network diagrams automatically.


Figure 3. Creating or editing custom properties for SmartShapes


Figure 4. Laying out shapes automatically. New layout is on the left of the drawing page

Visio's drawing tools include line, arc, freeform/spline, rectangle and ellipse. A versatile Pencil creates both lines and arcs, depending on whether you move your mouse in a line or a curve. You can add text to any shape simply by selecting a shape and typing; the size, angle and location of text in relation to its parent shape is customisable. You can also create stand-alone text with columns and bulleted lists - although the process is quite clumsy. A spell checker and a global find and replace work for an entire drawing, page or selection. You can also add data fields, such as page numbers, date/time or calculation results.

Visio Technical 4.5 includes Internet and ActiveX support, so you can add navigation links to shapes or pages and edit drawings within Internet Explorer. You can save pages in HTML format, and Visio will automatically add the appropriate navigation buttons to multiple pages. You can also export drawings to various Internet-ready formats, including JPEG, GIF and PGN.

AutoCAD support includes the ability to read and write DWG and DXF files, as well as a range of other formats. During import, Visio automatically converts AutoCAD symbol libraries into SmartShapes. You can control the conversion to specify how Visio translates certain properties (eg. styles, fonts and scale). AutoCAD Release 13 files are imported as displayable metafiles, and you can append changes made in Visio to the original AutoCAD file.

You can create files with multiple pages, each having its own properties such as page size, scale and layers. Visio also supports large-scale printed output in ANSI A-E and ISO A4-A0 sizes, and will print a drawing to fit the size of your paper.

Creating Custom Solutions

Visio supports a range of tools which extend its functionality. Full OLE 2.0 compatibility, built-in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and support for Lotus Notes/FX and ODBC-compliant databases (including SQL and Oracle for Visio Technical 4.5) mean you can customise your Visio work environment, create add-on programs and share information with other applications. Alternatively, you can use stand-alone Visual Basic, C or C++.

To give you some idea of Visio's potential, you could

  • Maintain an asset register by linking an inventory database to a Visio space plan
  • Update the inventory by adding or deleting shapes from the plan
  • Generate new Visio bolt shapes from a bolt specification database
  • Generate a material cutting list based upon drawing specifications
  • Generate customer mailouts when specified events occur, e.g. a shape is updated.
W izards make it easy to create organisation charts or project timelines from existing data.


Figure 5. The SmartShape Wizard


Figure 6. Setting snap and glue options


Figure 7. Generating new shapes using an Access database Wizard

Assessment

Visio is a drawing program with lots of potential. It lacks some standard features of purpose-built CAD packages, and many operations performed very simply by other programs, in Visio require VBA coding; for instance, macros, and custom menus and toolbars. On the other hand, Visio can save time and present a much shorter learning curve for users who rely mainly on pre-drawn shapes. Useful Wizards and programmable SmartShapes simplify many complex tasks, and of course programmers can use Visio to create powerful solutions for complex business procedures.

Certain tasks, such as creating complex shapes from scratch, are more difficult using Visio than they are with most CAD packages, partly because of an inflexible coordinate system. The menu structure is quite complex, with many commands buried four layers deep, and the status bar fails to display much of the information I expected to find there. While you can alter these last two features with some straightforward VBA programming, not all users will want to make the effort. The lack of a tutorial is a sad oversight, although there is plenty of other useful documentation.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, Visio has the potential to be a very useful tool for designers who rely mostly on ready-made shapes, and for programmers who intend to exploit it as part of a customised business solution.

Reprinted from the July 1997 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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