Google Draw Add Curved Arrow
How to Sketch your Data Science Ideas With Excalidraw
Stop using Words to Describe your Ideas. Use Drawings instead.
Motivation
If you want your manager or colleague to understand your ideas for a project, don't show them only words or a chunk of code. Use graphs or diagrams.
Imagine you want to explain with your manager the process of training a cat classifier, it would be easier for them to understand the flow of this process by showing them a picture like below.
Drawing is also a good way to outline what you want to do before tackling a project.
There are many tools to draw diagrams, but the one I like the most is Excalidraw. In this article, I will show you what Excalidraw is and why it is one of the best tools to draw diagrams.
What is Excalidraw?
Excalidraw is a virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams. Here are some nice features of this virtual whiteboard:
Hand-drawn Sketch
Excalidraw allows you to seamlessly create a nice hand-drawn diagram like below on the web.
For each shape, you can adjust:
- Color
- Fill
- Stroke width
- Stroke style
- Sloppiness
- Edges
- Opacity
The GIF below shows how a shape is altered with a change in each option.
An Arrow Moves when a Shape Moves
If an arrow is pointing to a shape and that shape is moved, the arrow will automatically adjust itself so that it still points to the shape. This feature is really useful since it saves you time to adjust both the shapes and the arrows.
Curved Arrows and Lines
You can create a straight line by dragging. But if you want to create a curve line or arrow, choose a line or an arrow then click at multiple positions like below.
Click the line twice to adjust the points creating that line.
Create Charts from Excel
Excalidraw also allows you to create charts by copying and pasting data from Excel or plain comma-separated text! For example, if you copy the table below and paste it on Excalidraw,
… you will automatically get 2 graphs like below!
Move and Align Multiple Objects
You can move multiple objects together by clicking more than one object while holding the Shift key.
You can also make all objects nicely aligned in a straight line like below! To align multiple objects, select multiple objects then select an option to align in the left sidebar.
Layers
You can also adjust which object should be in the front or in the back of another object by selecting a corresponding option in the Layers section.
Live Collaboration
What if you want to have real-time collaboration with your teammates? Excalidraw has got you covered. In the GIF below, whatever changes a person made, another person will see it almost instantly.
To enable live collaboration, click the 2 people icon in the top left corner.
Shape Library
If you want to create a more complicated shape, Excalidraw's library provides a variety of shapes for you to choose from.
To select a new shape from the library, click the square icon at the top toolbar and choose the icon that you want to add. Click browse libraries to download more shapes from Excalidraw libraries.
Save a Shape
You can also save a shape to your personal library for future use. To save a shape, click that shape then click the square icon.
Scroll to the bottom of the list and click your new shape to add it to your library.
Now you can pull your new shape from your personal library anytime in the future.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have just learned how to sketch your data science ideas with Excalidraw. By drawing diagrams, you give your ideas a higher chance to be understood and accepted by your manager and peers.
Sketch your ideas before actually implementing your code will also give you much more clarity on what approach you should use to solve your problem.
I like to write about basic data science concepts and play with different algorithms and data science tools. You could connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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Source: https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-sketch-your-data-science-ideas-with-excalidraw-a993d049f55c