(Free) modelling/"drawing" tool for feature trees?

Question

Hi,

I'm looking for a good tool to draw/model feature trees. Feature trees are used in PLE (product line engineering) and are a tree view to product families having common and different features.

It seems it is hard to find a common notation for feature trees, yet to find a tool supporting modelling/drawing them. Google wasn't very useful.

I only want to model a rather small feature tree, but I am simply too lazy to draw them by hand (I'd do though if there is at least a tool supporting the basic drawing elements).

Anyone?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You may be looking for this one http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page i guess

Answer 2

...or Graphviz?

http://www.graphviz.org/Gallery.php

Answer 3

No, feature trees are not mind maps. And although GraphViz is a powerful graphing solution, which can be customized as well, I don't think I can use it, because one can only customize the vertices and edges of graphs. However in feature trees the edges themselves are in relation with each other - hm... some kind of a multi-dimensional tree.

Answer 4

I agree, there aren’t any good tools on the market and a mind map is not a feature tree tool. The only tool I know of is Borland’s CaliberRM. It's a bit expensive and also not the silver bullet.

Do you know of any commercial tools?