TITLE: Publication Quality Mathematics Diagrams
QUESTION [27 upvotes]: I am curious what sort of applications people use to make very nice diagrams that often appear in papers and books. I attached an example of the sort of diagram that I am interested in making, particularly the curved coordinate systems (I am typing up some notes on Differential Geometry). Metapost seems useful, but the only real way I can see to create the curved coordinate system is to manually draw in each line via coordinates... which seems unpleasant to say the least.
Thanks for your help!

REPLY [5 votes]: This probably should go as a comment, but I dont have enough points:
Similar questions at other Stack Exchange sites: 

physics - What software programs are used to draw physics diagrams, and what are their relative merits? 
stackoverflow.com - Language or package for drawing geometric diagrams

Note that it would seem that the exact image used in the question is featured in an answer on physics.SE.