Free Graphics Software for Windows

This is the first step toward a list of graphics software, primarily for my own convenience.  I include only software that is free (in some imprecise sense) and I am interested only in software that runs on Windows, but that includes Unix programs that runs under Cygwin and Java programs.

Interactive

Object oriented (vector) drawing programs

Most useful for figures and diagrams based on line drawings.

Xfig (and derivatives)

Xfig is an interactive drawing tool which runs under the X Window System on most UNIX-compatible platforms and is the de-facto standard graphics editor.  It runs on Windows under under Cygwin / XFree86 and Cygwin precompiled binary and source code files are available (currently for xfig-3.2.3d).  Can input and output PostScript.

WinFIG is a preliminary native Windows port of Xfig.

jfig is a 2D graphics editor written in Java and based upon xfig.  It tries to provide as much of the functionality and user interface of xfig as possible with Java.

Others

Ipe is an extensible drawing editor for creating figures in PDF or (encapsulated) Postscript format.  It supports making small figures for inclusion into LaTeX-documents as well as making multi-page PDF presentations that can be shown on-line with Acrobat Reader.

Dia is a gtk+ based diagram creation program designed to be much like the commercial Windows program 'Visio'.  Can output PostScript.

Bitmap oriented painting programs

Most useful for photographic and similar types of graphics.

The Gimp is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.  It has been ported to Windows and an installer for GIMP for Windows is available.

Viewer / converter programs

XnView is a powerful application for viewing and converting graphic files.  It can import about 400 graphic file formats (including PostScript and PDF with the help of Ghostscript) and export about 50 graphic file formats.

IrfanView is a fast, small, compact and innovative graphic viewer for Windows (only).

Non-Interactive

Command-driven plotting programs

Most useful for figures and diagrams based on numerical data.

gnuplot is a command-driven interactive function plotting program.  It can be used to plot functions and data points in both two and three dimensions in many different formats.

Graphics manipulation programs and libraries

Netpbm is a package of graphics programs and programming libraries that is documented online.  (See also http://www.hpcc.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~dan/#Computing—windows%20tips and www.hpcc.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~dan/WindowsTips/latex2htmlfiles/.)

The PGPLOT Graphics Subroutine Library is a Fortran- or C-callable, device-independent graphics package for making simple scientific graphs.  It is intended for making graphical images of publication quality with minimum effort on the part of the user.  For most applications, the program can be device-independent, and the output can be directed to the appropriate device at run time.

Other software lists

Software for Economists is an idiosyncratic but long and useful guide to scientific software in general.