Could manim be used to create static diagrams (flow charts, mindmap, system architecture, etc), like TikZ for LaTeX?

[Saltsmart]

The animation (with math support) made by manim is really impressive!
We are now wondering: could manim be used to create static diagrams (generating a SVG or PDF file)?

Here are our needs:

• Draw an element with its absolute size and position, and easily get those attributes so you don't need to compute
• Auto-resize the canvas without pre-sizing to display all elements
• "Combine shapes" that allows to manipulate multiple elements for scaling, offsetting, copying... (similar function in PowerPoint or Visio)

We have investigated other Python tools for diagrams:

• Matplotlib (with tikzplotlib): no high-level APIs to do this easily
• Tikz-Python, pytikz, tikzpy...: they are the frontends for TikZ and need additional LaTeX distribution
• PyX: still in development
• Schemdraw: a tool for circuit drawing without much support for other diagrams
• diagrams, graphviz, iplotx...: they use templates and not as flexible as TikZ

For example, could manim create the following Transformer diagram?

[uwezi]

First: you can use Tikz within Manim (if LaTeX is installed!), but you could also manually place text boxes, draw frames and arrows - but more "handwork" is needed than in Tikz.

to create static diagrams (generating a SVG or PDF file)?

Manim was not created for this, it does not readily (if at all) produce a vectorized output. It was developed for screen-resolution output and can create bitmap images and video files.

If you have and know Tikz/LaTeX why are you looking for a different way?

[Saltsmart]

TikZ is not easy for computing relative position (since it has limited math support $$), e.g., creating trisection points between A and B.

Besides, it's not really object-oriented.
You could easily "set" attributes via TikZ commands but not "get" them.

[uwezi]

yes, by it's nature Tikx and LaTeX are not object-oriented, but when it comes to the pgfmath capabilities, there is not much which would be missing ( https://tikz.dev/math-parsing ). And a tri-section is even simpler

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \path (0,0) node(A){A};
  \path (5,5) node(B){B};
  \path (A) -- (B) node[pos=0.333](C){C};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}