Engineering Solutions in Visio Professional 2007

Often, the tasks that engineers need to solve visually are quite complex and integrate data in the form of specifications or tolerances. Chemical industry workers need to see material streams moving between vessels; an engineering team needs to generate electronic equipment specifications and schematics. Although Visio 2007 shapes snap together quickly to present a flat picture of your world, shapes can also be accurate models of components in your system, process, or plant. For example, dimension line shapes automatically display accurate measurements. Shape data can store additional attributes for shapes.

Most of the engineering drawing types in Visio Professional 2007 can be assembled using the “drag-drop-done” approach: drag shapes from stencils, connect as appropriate, add text, and then save your work. The process engineering templates, however, take a model-based approach to the diagramming task, as explained later in this chapter. Table 27-1 lists the engineering templates included with Visio Professional 2007.