What each import keeps

For each kind of file iyedy imports, what becomes elements, relationships and views, what iyedy has to interpret, and what it leaves out. The import report of each file lists the same groups for that file: Mapped, Approximated, Dropped and To check.

draw.io

Mapped. C4 shapes, UML actors, cylinders (databases) and the AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Kubernetes shapes become elements of the matching kind. Lines between two shapes become relationships. A draw.io file exported by iyedy keeps its kinds. Positions are kept.

Approximated. A kind guessed from a shape's look; an arrow guessed from a line style (a dashed line read as asynchronous); two-headed lines and lines without a head; plain shapes read as elements because a line touches them; one element made of the same shape drawn on several pages; a host icon split into a host and what runs on it; cloud groups (account, region, VPC, subnet) that make their page a deployment environment instead of boxes; styles.

Dropped. Unlabelled decorative shapes; invisible groups and zone boxes, flattened; lines not attached to two shapes; lines from a shape to itself; BPMN shapes drawn in draw.io.

Kept as notes. Labelled shapes that no line touches.

Visio

Mapped. Each foreground page becomes a view, with its shapes' positions. Shapes from masters whose meaning is certain become elements of that kind: actors and users as people, databases, servers and virtual machines as hosts, firewalls and load balancers as infrastructure, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud icons with their provider. Connectors glued to two shapes, or whose ends touch them, become relationships; arrow heads give the direction.

Approximated. Kinds inferred from cloud icons; arrows inferred from line styles (dashed read as asynchronous); two-headed connectors; groups flattened; labelled boxes around shapes kept as systems or groups; shapes resolved to one element across pages; connectors drawn on several pages kept once; host icons split into a host and its workload; cloud groups turning a page into a deployment environment.

Dropped. Background pages; images and embedded objects; unlabelled decorative shapes; connectors not attached to two shapes, from a shape to itself, or to people on a deployment page.

Kept as notes. Other labelled shapes and masters.

Not read. The older binary format .vsd (Visio 2003 to 2010) and password-protected drawings.

Mermaid

Mapped. Flowcharts, with their subgraphs; sequence diagrams, as a scenario with its Sequence view; the C4 diagrams of Mermaid (context, container, component, dynamic, deployment), with their kinds. iyedy lays out the views itself: Mermaid files carry no positions.

Dropped. Mermaid diagrams of other types, empty diagrams. A Markdown file may hold several Mermaid blocks: they are read together, and a block that cannot be read is listed and left out.

SVG and PNG from iyedy

Mapped. Everything: an SVG or PNG exported from iyedy carries its model, so the import gives back the diagram, its views and their layout.

Not read. Any other picture. iyedy does not turn a drawing into a model from its pixels; the import says no iyedy model was found.