Software for making Character Relationship Maps

Question

I'm looking for software that can be used to create Character Relationship Maps similar to the ones below:

My current system is Windows 7 SP1 64-bit. Ideally I'd rather a 32-bit installer and the program to be compatible with both Windows 7 and Windows 10 (I plan to upgrade my computer when I get more room).

Requirements

• Text and images together for one character: similar to the first one, maybe not as fancy.

• Customizeable connections: i.e. colour, line style, icons (like with the first one, see the hearts) at the very least I want to be able to colour code them because I can get character maps more complex that the second image and if they are all black lines it makes it hard to read.

• Group characters together: similar to second and forth, also would like to be able to group those groups (i.e. different divisions of an organization) though the lack of this can be made up for having coloured groups.

• Offline: not just usage but the installer needs to be offline too. This is because the computer I do a lot of my work on doesn't connect to the internet and I have very little to no intention to make it so.

Cost

• Preferably free but I won't mind having to pay for it if it is good.
• No payment plans. I want to buy the software and that's it, not have to worry about monthly/yearly.

Rejected software

• Tinderbox: it's too expensive. US$199 ~= Aus$265 and that's going by Google's conversion as of 12/09/2016 and when it comes to paying not every financial insinuation has that same rate depending on any currency conversion fees. That's like almost my entire monthly personal allowance (I set aside some money every month outside bills and necessities for personal purchases like games, anime/manga/merch, software, hardware, other random junk).

• Scapple: doesn't have Customizeable connections. I emailed the devs asking this and their reply was

  Regarding customizing "connections" in Scapple: there isn't very much customization. You can change whether or not the connection is a line or an arrow, but that is about it. It is always a straight line connection (no turning corners) and you cannot control the color.

• Microsoft Visio: I don't have Visio in my Office Suite so to get it is more expensive than Tinderbox. 365 also runs a subscription system which I don't want to use.

• Microsoft Project: I don't have Project in my Office Suite and the offline solutions are even more expensive that Visio. This is also assuming that that the prices I'm seeing are in Aus$ with the Australia Tax on them (with help from Geoblocking).

Answer 1

yEd

I'm not sure of the special requirements for character relationship maps, but yEd is good for drawing almost any kind of diagram that is fundamentally a mathematical graph (such as a flowchart or network diagram).

Requested features satisfied by yEd:

• free of charge
• labels for nodes (text with character portrait)
• customizable connectors, including bendability
• installable and usable offline
• compatible with Windows 7 and 10 (implemented in Java, so highly multiplatform; 32-bit and 64-bit Windows installers available)

As for grouping nodes together, I'm not sure if yEd has full support for that; I haven't needed it myself. Looking at some of the sample diagrams in their gallery, it would seem you could definitely at least get by with careful coloring.

Answer 2

I am not sure if you are looking for a drag & drop painting program, or would prefer (as I do) to describe the relationships in text and have a program draw the image for you, based on that description.

Take a look at Graphviz's gallery to see what it can produce.

For instance

graph { 
        a -- b; 
        b -- c; 
        a -- c; 
        d -- c; 
        e -- c; 
        e -- a; 
    } 

produces this

And you can add your own images, as described here

Graphviz has been around for decades, is free and well suported. I can't recommend it enough (but, if you don't go with GraphViz, then do go with yEd, as @JohnY recommends). It also lets you define your own shapes.