Re: Visio format conversion

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Alan G Isaac wrote:

> Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 15:30:47 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
> From: Alan G Isaac <aisaac@american.edu>
> Reply-To: dia-list@gnome.org
> To: dia-list <dia-list@gnome.org>
> Subject: Visio format conversion
>
> I assume this is well known,
> but just in case, I've sent it...
>   http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/visio/
>   http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/8658.html
>
> Cheers,
> Alan Isaac

This is interesting but I am fairly sure it not really as good as it
sounds.

from the second link:
"The file converter relies on the OLE technology, and can work either on a
local machine which has Visio installed"

SmartDraw, does something similar.
I have considered suffering some VisualBasic and trying to hack something
similar for Dia.  I am also reliably informed that Visio 2003 exports to
SVG which I intend to take a closer look at in the near future.

It would seem as if they have a copy of Visio on their server doing the
work and I would be highly surprised if providing this service is not in
breech of Visio licensing.

I would be interested to know what sort of results these systems produce,
and the level of dataloss if any in complex UML diagrams.

I am highly interested in Ian Redferns work and I hope to provide him many
many sample visio documents and if he has time to encourage him to
continue his efforts (and maybe even VXD)
http://public.logica.com/~redferni/dia/

Lars previously suggested that he had a copy of the VXD schema, I hope he
will provide relevant links or put a copy some where (although I suspect I
could dig up the information somewhere on MSN).  Always a good idea to
archive this kind of documentation before Microsoft changes their mind and
updates it.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/