A tutorial for creating publication-quality figures with open-source tools:

• Focus on electrical engineering / power electronics
• Compatible with typical IEEE paper format
• Schematics / diagrams with Inkscape
• Various plots with Matplotlib
• Mesh / FEM plots with PyVista
• Slides of the tutorial

The following open-source tools are used:

• Inkscape for creating and assembling figures
• GIMP for handling photos and images
• LaTeX for typesetting equations
• Python / Matplotlib for plots
• Python / PyVista for mesh/FEM plots
• Paderborn / LEA library for the symbols

• Main Files
  • slides.pdf - Slides (PDF) of the tutorial (CC BY 4.0)
  • slides.odp - Slides (ODP) of the tutorial (CC BY 4.0)
  • requirements.txt - List of the used Python packages.
  • export_inkscape.sh - Export PDF/PNG from Inkscape.
  • utils_mpl.py - Utils functions for Matplotlib plots.
  • utils_pv.py - Utils functions for PyVista plots.
• Python Plots
  • plot_line.py - Logarithmic axis and custom axis ticks.
  • plot_error.py - Plot with error bars and error fill area.
  • plot_hist.py - Histogram plot with transparency.
  • plot_cmap.py - Large scatter plot with a colormap.
  • plot_meas_impedance.py - Plot impedance measurements.
  • plot_meas_waveform.py - Plot oscilloscope waveforms.
  • plot_mesh.py - 3D/2D plots of EM simulations.
  • plot_notebook.ipynb - Plot with Jupyter notebook.
• Folders
  • fig_schemas - Examples of Inkscape figures (schematics / diagrams).
  • fig_plots - Examples of Inkscape plots (with Python / Matplotlib).
  • plot_data - Data for the example plots.
  • img_data - Images for the readme file.

• Operating systems
  • Tested on Linux x86/64.
  • Tested on MS Windows x86/64.
  • Tested on Apple MacOS ARM64.
• Software versions
  • Tested with Python 3.12 / 3.13
  • Tested with Inkscape 1.4.1.
• Python dependencies
  • Numpy / Matplotlib
  • PyVista / Pillow
  • JupyterLab (optional)
  • List in requirements.txt.

• Name: Thomas Guillod
• Affiliation: Dartmouth College
• Email: guillod@otvam.ch
• Website: https://otvam.ch

(c) 2023-2025 - Thomas Guillod

BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License