So I spent most of today playing with the drawing and pipe tools in perspective. Im investigating using these tools to create P&ID/schematic type screens inside perspective. Not really as operator screens (high performance hmi all the way) but as documentation/troubleshooting aides that can be accessed when needed. Im not sure this is a good idea yet but Im entertaining the idea. Not sure if I will bind anything to live tags or just have these as static diagrams.
I have zero experience working with SVGs and I dont want to create anything to fancy or complex. Ive heard a lot about Inkscape on here from before the drawing tool was available. Im assuming the drawing tools inside perspective are still somewhat limited compared to a dedicated tool like Inkscape? Is it one of those deals where if your going to do much its worth learning Inkscape and importing the finished SVG into perspective or are the built in drawing tools sufficient for basic use?
I find the drawing editor to be more useful than Inkscape simply because it is geared more towards specific use in Ignition, where Inkscape has more tools/ability/features than I would ever need.
Sometimes simple is better.
i personally use drawing tool to make slight modifications on my SVGs. but usually i use inkscape, affinity or any other free alternative. if you are going to make some animation effect linked with your SVG. it's better to use inkscape or any other vectors specialized software.
Any thoughts on the piping tool vs just drawing lines in the SVG. I played with the piping tool some but not sure I see much advantage over just drawing lines. Now if the connection points were robust so you could move an object and the pipes would follow along that would be cool.
I've dabbled with the drawing tools, but don't find it easy to use, as well as missing a lot of functionality I'm used to in Inkscape. Personally, I would learn Inkscape. I've tried affinity too, but it lacks some basic features that Inkscape has. I vaguely remember there might have been more than one I found, but trace bitmap was definitely one that I use semi-regularly that's missing from affinity, and the devs don't seem keen in adding it it. I just read that they finally added it late last year
Pipes arent too bad in perspective, just make sure that you add them into another coordinate container inside your coord view (and only use it for pipes!), otherwise the 10 gazillion snap points on every object on the screen will shorten your life expectancy 
Can you export a drawing from ignition as a SVG? I know you can import them but can you get them out if created in the drawing tool? Thinking of some of the uses I think I would want to have the SVG file saved outside ignition for backup, printing, external sharing, etc.
I save the svg's inside a folder in the project on the file system which gets backed up by a gwbk, but I don't think there's a native export to svg. However, Claude AI would do a decent job of writing a python script to pull it out of the component's JSON. I've done something similar before, but the more complex the SVG (eg with defs and such) the slightly harder it might be. (I wouldn't waste your time with chat gpt or gemini for it)
That to me sounds like a pretty decent argument for using inkscape and importing into ignition.
Been playing with Inkscape the last couple of days. It really seems pretty slick. Im still learning it but its easy enough to figure out the basics. Im using it to create ISA style P&IDs for documentation purposes. Seems like it will work pretty well and will make electronic access actually nice.
What exactly do you mean by this? Using it to create p&ids, as in the pipework and the devices in the one svg?
Essentially yes Im just drawing a diagram as one big SVG. Mostly just experimenting with it right now to see what I think of the program. Never really worked with SVGs before so its a learning process.
That's fine for learning, but I would never create the entire screen with device symbols etc in the one svg for embedding into ignition. You want your device symbols to be template Views so that you can encapsulate all the functionality that you need into it
Fair enough. At this point I am mostly working on them from a documentation/planning type of approach. We have poor existing documentation and I have to figure out how everything works in order to build our new SCADA in Ignition. What Im currently making will serve as the road map of what signals exist, where they come from, and what they need to do in the control system. I am a firm believer in high performance hmi so I am not planning on making these P&IDs part of what the operators would typically interact with. However from a troubleshooting perspective being able to pull them up directly from an ignition screen would be pretty nice. Taking the troubleshooting a step further and animating them in ignition so I could show equipment status, current values, etc could be pretty cool.
For that then I would have to do like your talking and maybe make a base image of the piping and signals, then add symbols on top of it for the equipment.
Ah, so you're drawing the p&ids in Inkscape? You're not going to like me, but for this you should be using CAD 
it will be much easier and more maintainable
I use libreCAD as well, which actually works really well for me. For these sorts of simple undimensioned diagrams (so far for me personally) it a 6 of one half dozen of the other thing. CAD has some benefits, inkscape has some benefits, they both have some struggles. In a previous life in a galaxy far far away I did mechanical design, 3d modeling, and drafting. I dont particularly enjoy drafting type work (unless its by hand) but its got to be done.