We are steadily increasing the number of Visio network equipment shapes available on ShapeSource. Since Visimation develops these shapes for our clients, they are already paid for and we can post them for download at no charge. Here is a link to the current list:
Visio Network Equipment shapes for free

We are often asked about the quality of various Visio equipment shapes that are available from vendors that sell subscriptions and from the manufacturers themselves... they are not all created equally!

When Microsoft was offering their own catalog of network shapes several years ago, Visimation helped them write the specifications and we also created production tools for an offshore team of shape builders. In our opinion, the best equipment shapes will have all or most of the following characteristics:

Realistic image quality

Accurate sizing

Well thought out snapping behavior

Properly located connection points whereever other parts or cabling may be attached

A good set of Custom Properties / Shape Data

Right click menus for additional features like text label display and editing

Hyperlinks to manufacturer's information and specs

Here's an example of a realistic looking shape and a right click menu that enables you to toggle between front and rear views, a very handy feature for creating richer drawings:



Here's one where you can change the part number with a right click menu and that will also change the Shape Data:



Most device shapes snap into racks and cards snap into the devices. For components that are not rack mounted, like cable raceways and various types of cabinetry, the assembly problem is much more complex and must be handled intelligently so that the end user can easily design the configurations they need. We'll cover those topics in a future posting.

We have received many requests for shapes of typical symbols used for laying out security systems in buildings. These are now available at ShapeSource.com

The set includes Access Control (intercoms, card readers, etc.), Fire Alarm, Security Alarm, and Surveillance. There are no standards for these graphics as far as we could tell after interviewing several security system installers so we've done our best to make them generic and sensible for the people who would need them.

One of our customers, 1st Security Management, is using these shapes for creating submittal packages and he reports a huge time savings and improvement in the clarity of his drawings. Of course there are other elements of a submittal package such as specifications, price quotes, and cut sheets. These graphics make it a lot easier to produce the drawings of floor plans and to show wiring. You can view this sample drawing, or see the detail of part of the plan below:



If you have any comments or suggestions for these shapes, please email us.

Several posts in Visimation's Visio Forums have related to issues that can be explained through an understanding of the Document Stencil. This explanation may help you understand how the contents of the Document Stencil, which is unknown to typical Visio users, affects your drawings.

The Document Stencil carries all masters that are in the drawing which makes it possible for you to send your drawing to another users that may not have masters of the shapes on your page. If not for the Document Stencil, you'd need to send both the drawing and the stencil to enable others to view it.

Problems that can relate to the Document Stencil are:
1. The drawing file size seems much larger than one would expect based on the contents of the drawing page
2. An updated master dropped onto the drawing seems to still have characteristics of the previous version that was dropped into the drawing earlier but deleted.

So let's discuss the Document Stencil and also how it relates to a tool called the Drawing Explorer. The Drawing Explorer is simply a tree view of the objects in the entire document... no shapes exist in the Explorer. The geometry is either on the Visio page or a stencil. When you drag a master shape from a stencil to the page, that shape will show in the Document Stencil. If you delete the shape from the page it will still be in the Document Stencil. You can delete it from the Document Stencil by either opening the Document Stencil (File>Shapes>Show Document Stencil) or from the Masters section of the Drawing Explorer. To see this clearly, try this:

- Start a new Basic Drawing
- Open the Drawing Explorer Window (View>Drawing Explorer Window)
- Open the Document Stencil (File>Shapes>Show Document Stencil)
- Drag a triangle to the page

You will see the triangle on the page, on the Document Stencil, and in the Drawing Explorer in 2 places; under Page-1/Shapes and under Masters. Now, delete the triangle from the page. It is no longer under Shapes in the Drawing Explorer but it is still under Master and also on the Document Stencil. Now select and delete it from the Document Stencil. It is no longer in the Master section of the Drawing Explorer.

The Drawing Explorer gives you a view of the contents of your file but shapes are not located there. One can delete masters listed in Drawing Explorer under Master or in the Document Stencil. In the simple example described, it's easy to see the relationship because it's only one shape.

Now imagine a drawing with hundreds of shapes on the page. The document Stencil contains masters of every shape on the page as well as every shape that has ever been deleted. The challenge here is to rid the file of "unused masters", those that are no longer needed but that may be affecting new instances of updated masters you are adding to the drawing that have the same name. These unused masters also increase the file size.

How do you identify those that are still in the drawing? Sure, you can go to the Document Stencil and manually select each master and delete them. If there is no instance of a master on the page, then it simply disappears. If the master does have at least one instance on the page, you will see a message, "Master(s) to be deleted are linked to objects on a drawing page. Break these links and delete the master(s)?" The same is true when you delete the master through the Drawing Explorer but Visio is really saying, "Hey, go delete this sucker from the Document Stencil!"

What you really want to do is remove only the masters from the Document Stencil that are unused. Visimation offers a free tool called VisiClean that accomplishes this. It compares the contents of the Document Stencil to the contents of the page and removes all unused masters. The result is a smaller file size and also no conflict with updated masters with the same name that you add later.

PS: In Visio 2007 the clean feature is built in under the File menu, Remove Hidden Information. In the File Size Reduction tab, you can check "Remove unused master shapes". VisiClean does the same thing for previous versions of Visio.

This TechNet article describes changes to existing features from Visio 2003 to Visio 2007.

Here is a link to a two-part paper on MSDN titled What's New For Developers in Visio 2007.

Juniper Networks has released custom Visimation Visio shapes for its new M120 multiservice edge routing platform. This is an update to the M series Visio stencils that Visimation has developed for Juniper over the past 6 years. More information about the M series from Juniper, including links to download the M series Visio shapes, is available at Juniper M Series

The Microsoft MSDN Library is publishing a series of technical papers by Visimation about integrating the forthcoming Visio 2007 with other Microsoft Office products. The first two papers in the series have just been released, covering how to link Visio with Access databases and Excel. The topics include sample automation code for generating an Excel bill of materials from Visio drawings and for generating Visio diagrams from Access data.

Integrating Visio 2007 and Excel 2007

Integrating Visio 2007 and Access 2007

These articles will help you get a head start on building more productive Visio tools. They illustrate both sides of the "equation"... generating data from graphics and generating graphics from data.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time

October's Visio Partner Webcast will feature two partners with solutions that integrate with Microsoft Visio in the areas of Business Process Management and Datacenter Modeling/Management.

Zynium is a leading Microsoft® Visio® integration solution for the BPM, and QA verticals. Zynium designs Microsoft® Visio® process and product transformation solutions. These solutions enable Business Analysts to model using their own shapes or an included BPMN stencil. Without rekeying, they retool with the Byzio Export/Importer into their internal Business Process Management or Quality Assurance application. Zynium is a process centric functional requirements solution with integration in mind to save time and money our Fortune 100 clients.

Rackwise products, by Visual Network Design Inc. delivers key features integrating with Microsoft Visio to simplify and reduce the time consumed designing, modeling and operating the physical infrastructure of your data center. With Rackwise you’ll be able to: Generate Detailed Real-Time Visual Documentation, Ensure Racks and the Datacenter are Within Design Limits, Instantly Find Available Datacenter Resources, Improve Utilization of Power and Space and Import and Document the Datacenter in Minutes.

Click here to register for the event.