Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

[Daniel Postilnik]

Hi folks,

I'm working with an IT team at a fitness company that wants to make Visio rack diagrams of the rack-mounted systems installed at different fitness studios. Unfortunately the audio vendor who installed the systems has not been cooperative in providing the stencils (a low-res image of the front of the unit) needed to make these diagrams in Visio.

What is the best way to acquire this kind of image? Will it require contacting manufacturers directly? Is there a library somewhere? Any help appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Josh Millward]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

Some manufacturers have stencils, some don't.

In my experience, often manufacturer provided stencils are not the greatest. You may be best off just rolling your own. If you have a photo of the front panel of the unit, that should be relatively quick and painless.

If you were using MediaMatrix equipment, I could point you to the MediaMatrix Visio Stencils, but since you are not, I'm afraid that will be of minimal help.

 

[John VisioMVP]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

Some manufacturers have stencils, some don't.

In my experience, often manufacturer provided stencils are not the greatest. You may be best off just rolling your own. If you have a photo of the front panel of the unit, that should be relatively quick and painless.

If you were using MediaMatrix equipment, I could point you to the MediaMatrix Visio Stencils, but since you are not, I'm afraid that will be of minimal help.

You are right that the quality of Visio shapes vary and unfortunately, yours also fall into that category. They are an improvement of the simple picture, but they are still basically clip art. They contain no Visio smarts. There are no connection points on the shapes I looked at or features that react to data. Having said that, just add some smarts and you will have a great Visio stencil.

If you are looking for stencils, I would check with the manufacturers. There are a couple of companies that make Visio stencils for sale, that are professional quality and they usually have a deal that the companies can give away the Visio stencils to their clients. NetZoom is one of them and they can be found at Visiostencils.com. I am not sure about audio shapes.

Of course, most of the time, you can just get away with using clipart. You can then turn the clipart into Visio shapes by dropping them onto a page. This will create an encapsulating Visio shape that you can then add connection points to or overlay other images. For example, you can overlay a dot over a light on the device and use shape data to control the colour from red to yellow to green to gray. Then by controlling the data, you can change the appearance of the drawing. Now you are getting into real Visio shapes rather than clipart.

 

[TJ Cornish]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

You are right that the quality of Visio shapes vary and unfortunately, yours also fall into that category. They are an improvement of the simple picture, but they are still basically clip art. They contain no Visio smarts. There are no connection points on the shapes I looked at or features that react to data. Having said that, just add some smarts and you will have a great Visio stencil.

If you are looking for stencils, I would check with the manufacturers. There are a couple of companies that make Visio stencils for sale, that are professional quality and they usually have a deal that the companies can give away the Visio stencils to their clients. NetZoom is one of them and they can be found at Visiostencils.com. I am not sure about audio shapes.

Of course, most of the time, you can just get away with using clipart. You can then turn the clipart into Visio shapes by dropping them onto a page. This will create an encapsulating Visio shape that you can then add connection points to or overlay other images. For example, you can overlay a dot over a light on the device and use shape data to control the colour from red to yellow to green to gray. Then by controlling the data, you can change the appearance of the drawing. Now you are getting into real Visio shapes rather than clipart.

Mr. MVP, this forum requires your username to be your full real name. Please change it to comply with forum rules.

 

[Brad Weber]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

I'm working with an IT team at a fitness company that wants to make Visio rack diagrams of the rack-mounted systems installed at different fitness studios.

Are they trying to create rack elevations or something more like system schematic diagrams or single line diagrams?

Unfortunately the audio vendor who installed the systems has not been cooperative in providing the stencils (a low-res image of the front of the unit) needed to make these diagrams in Visio.

Is it in their contract to provide this information? Not suggesting they shouldn't help anyways but if it is in their contract or not could be two very different situations, especially if the information is not readily available or was already provided in some other format as part of the contracted work.

 

[Daniel Postilnik]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

Are they trying to create rack elevations or something more like system schematic diagrams or single line diagrams?


Is it in their contract to provide this information? Not suggesting they shouldn't help anyways but if it is in their contract or not could be two very different situations, especially if the information is not readily available or was already provided in some other format as part of the contracted work.

Brad, they are specifically making rack elevation diagrams. The reasons the vendor isn't cooperative may have nothing to do with contracts; lets just say that things are sensitive at the moment.

John, according to your method, how would I get to the clipart stage in the first place?

 

[Jason Lavoie]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

Brad, they are specifically making rack elevation diagrams. The reasons the vendor isn't cooperative may have nothing to do with contracts; lets just say that things are sensitive at the moment.

John, according to your method, how would I get to the clipart stage in the first place?

Is it important that they be in visio? or do you just need a nicely done rack elevation?
it may be faster and easier (maybe cheaper too) to hire someone who has Stardraw or similar to whip up a drawing for you. stardraw has all of those brands and a rack layout is very quick to build.

Jason

 

[John VisioMVP]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

Brad, they are specifically making rack elevation diagrams. The reasons the vendor isn't cooperative may have nothing to do with contracts; lets just say that things are sensitive at the moment.

John, according to your method, how would I get to the clipart stage in the first place?

Do a Google search on images and see what you get. It can be svg, jpg, bmp or most any of the popular graphic formats. If you are planning on changing the size, look for vector rather than bitmap images. They really do not have to be Visio shapes. The Visio smarts can be added to it as I pointed out.

 

[Bennett Prescott]

Re: Visio stencils for Lab Gruppen, Furman, and Symetrix

Do a Google search on images and see what you get. It can be svg, jpg, bmp or most any of the popular graphic formats. If you are planning on changing the size, look for vector rather than bitmap images. They really do not have to be Visio shapes. The Visio smarts can be added to it as I pointed out.

John, unless your last name is really "VisioMVP" you are going to have to change your login to your real name as clearly stated in the FAQ.