Postscript flowchart symbols for graphviz

I've been wanting a more complete set of flowchart symbols for graphviz for a long time. Since today is a holiday and the kids are out of town I had some time to finally hack up some postscript flowchart shapes that graphviz can use. Some shapes are already available but others have been missing. With the above shape file, you have to use the postscript driver to have access to a more complete set of flowchart shapes. But once you've generated postscript, you can convert the output to other image formats with something like ghostview. Here is an example - a student registration process as a flow chart. This example was proposed as a swimlane flowchart and originally from an article in CA magazine.

Graphviz flowchart example: A Student registration process

The graphviz input file for that looks like this.

digraph apply {
  rankdir=BT; fontname=Helvetica
  node[peripheries=0, style=filled, fillcolor=blue, fontcolor=white,fontname=Helvetica,fixedsize=true,width=1.8,height=0.8]
  edge[fontname=Helvetica,fontsize=12,fontcolor=blue,labeldistance=1.8]

  subgraph cluster_student {
    label="Student";
    style=filled; fillcolor=grey92
    submit [shape=record, style="filled,rounded",label="Submit\nRegistration\n"]
    letter [shape=fdoc,peripheries=0, label="Letter"]
  }
  subgraph cluster_admin {
    label="Admin"
    style=filled; fillcolor=grey92
    complete  [shape=diamond,height=1,label="Application\nComplete?"]
    admreject [shape=record,label="Write Rejection\nLetter\n"]
  }
  subgraph cluster_registrar {
    label="Registrar"
    style=filled; fillcolor=grey92
    min [shape=diamond,height=1,label="Minimum\nStandard\nMet?"]
  }
  subgraph cluster_faculty {
    label="Faculty"
    style=filled; fillcolor=grey92
    {rank=same;
    suitable  [shape=diamond, height=1,label="Suitable for\nProgram?\n"]
    facaccept [shape=record,  label="Write Acceptance\nLetter\n"]
    }
  }

  submit -> complete
  complete -> submit     [headlabel="no"]
  complete -> min        [headlabel="yes"]
  min -> admreject       [headlabel="no"]
  min -> suitable        [headlabel="yes"]
  suitable -> admreject  [headlabel="no"]
  suitable -> facaccept  [headlabel="yes"]
  admreject -> letter
  facaccept -> letter
}

And the command for producing it looks like this.

dot -Teps -Gsplines=ortho -l flow.ps apply.dot | epstopdf --filter | pdftoppm | pamscale -width 800 | ppmtojpeg > apply.jpg

The detour through epstopdf is because the bounding box generated by graphviz is not really what you would expect. You need my flow.ps graphviz postscript shape file to provide as input to the dot command. For reference, here is a list of flow chart symbols that are now available.

Flowchart symbols for Graphviz (many from my postscript shape file)

It was produced with this command:

unflatten -c4 symbols.dot | dot -Teps -l flow.ps | epstopdf --filter | pdftoppm | pamscale -width 800 | ppmtojpeg > symbols.jpg

And here is the graphviz input file:

digraph symbols {

  node [peripheries=0,style=filled,fillcolor="antiquewhite4",fontname=Helvetica,fontcolor=white,fixedsize=true,width=1.8,height=0.6]

 data    [shape=fdata,       label="Data\nSymbol"]
 dec     [shape=diamond,     label="Decision\nSymbol", height=0.8]
 disk    [shape=fdisk,       label="Disk\nSymbol"]
 disp    [shape=fdisplay,    label="Display\nSymbol"]
 doc     [shape=fdoc,        label="Document\nSymbol"]
 extr    [shape=triangle,    label="Extract\nSymbol",  height=0.8]
 manin   [shape=fmanualin,   label="Manual Input\nSymbol"]
 manop   [shape=invtrapezium,label="Manual Operation\nSymbol"]
 merge   [shape=invtriangle, label="Merge\nSymbol",   height=0.8]
 multido [shape=fmultidoc,   label="Multi Document\nSymbol"]
 preproc [shape=fpreproc,    label="Predefined Process\nSymbol"]
 prep    [shape=hexagon,     label="Preparation\nSymbol"]
 proc    [shape=record,      label="Process\nSymbol"]
 term    [shape=record,      label="Terminator\nSymbol",style="rounded,filled"]
}