What software should I use for drawing force diagrams?

Question

I would like to include some drawings, especially some force diagrams to my thesis.

For instance, I would like to sketch some figures like:

enter image description here

I have a few possibilities

Draw them in PowerPoint blocks, but it produces really simple shapes and does not have a library to draw some shapes. Everything needs to be created from scratch and it causes some problems when it comes to rescale the whole shape.
Using GeoGebra, which is nice in terms of geometrical relations and scalability, butit is not exactly what I am looking for.
I have tried yEd Graph Editor, which is perfect in terms of sketching flowcharts, but when it comes to drawing some shapes, it does not suit well, as it does not even have rotating the shape function.
Using TikZ/PGF. As far as I know with this anything can be drawn, butmy TeX skills are not good enough to produce such good images in a short time. Actually what I am looking for is to be able to produce such graphs, but in an easier way.

In addition, I have already read the related topic https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1095/software-to-draw-illustrative-figures-in-papers . But I could not find a proper one there and any suggestions would be appreciated.

This is off-topic for this SE site. Nonetheless, I've used for similar purposes MS Visio and got very good results, perhaps you should consider it. — user3209815, Jan 21, 2015 at 11:01
I think this question may be off-topic because it is a shopping question. — Wrzlprmft, Jan 21, 2015 at 11:22
Thank you @StephanKolassa , I was not aware of that site, but now I am going to see Software Recommendations section as well. — birincilikteli, Jan 21, 2015 at 12:11

Steve Barnes · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-21 13:31:38Z

3

For this sort of thing I would recommend Inkscape:

answered Jan 21, 2015 at 13:31

Steve Barnes

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