Specify tikz drawing size without scaling it

tikz-pgf

I want to specify the rectangle into which a tikzpicture (not a pgfplot) will be drawn, without scaling. The goal is to require a fixed height for a figure (in points, cm, etc.) so that the height won't change as the details of the drawing change. It's expected that you could end up with a large blank area if the drawing is actually much smaller. Or, if the drawing is larger than the provided rectangle, then the drawing is allowed to overwrite the adjoining text, or it may be clipped to the drawing rectangle — it doesn't matter which of the two it does, although I would prefer overwriting.

What I'm hoping for is something like

\begin{tikzpicture}[height=200pt]

I emphatically do not want to scale the picture to make it fit a given box.

It seems like it should be possible to tweak the height of the relevant hbox or vbox that contains the drawing. If I understand how boxes work, then this would have the effect of letting the drawing scribble wherever it wants, but LaTeX would consider the drawing to have the size I specified.

@AlainMatthes asks exactly what I am after, and maybe this wasn't as clear as it could be.

I'm writing a program that allows one to edit tikz pictures as they sit on the page. That is, you can see both the surrounding text (as produced by LaTeX) and the picture you are editing. The tikz editor needs to know exactly how big the drawing area is, for obvious reasons. When the finished drawing is inserted back into the original LaTeX document, it shouldn't be changed; in particular, it should not be rescaled.

So I want to set the exact size of the box (vbox or hbox, whichever it is) that LaTeX will use when it lays out the page. I think that the answer provided by @hpekristiansen will do it. And I think the answer from @AlainMatthes would work too if you want the figure to be clipped.

Best Answer

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1] 
\begin{tikzpicture}
\useasboundingbox (0pt,0pt) rectangle (100pt,200pt); %this sets the width and height
\draw[dashed] (0pt,0pt) rectangle (100pt,200pt); %just to show the area
\draw[red, ultra thick] (-50pt,-50pt) -- (150pt,250pt); %draws outside the area
\end{tikzpicture}
\lipsum[2] 
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Centering a TikZ picture around an area

Here my first attempt. It defines a xcenter around={lower left}{upper right} key which should be used in the optional argument of the tikzpicture, e.g. \begin{tikzpicture}[xcenter around={1,0}{6,5}].

\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\tikzset{xcenter around/.style 2 args={execute at end picture={%
  \useasboundingbox let \p0 = (current bounding box.south west), \p1 = (current bounding box.north east),
                        \p2 = (#1), \p3 = (#2)
                    in
        ({min(\x2 + \x3 - \x1,\x0)},\y0) rectangle ({max(\x3 + \x2 - \x0,\x1)},\y1);
}}}

I'm working on an extended version which adds more functionality.

[Tex/LaTex] Scale TikZ nodes and shapes for a given canvas size

I am not certain if I've understood the question or not. Assuming that you plan to use this in a two column document, I've switched to article as suggested in comments. However, the code for the image is still taken from an external file. The scaling is determined by setting a PGF key to the required value. It is 1 by default. To change this use

\pgfkeyssetvalue{cacamailg/picture-scale}{<value>}

In the code below, I use 0.8 as an example but you can equally use, say, 2 or whatever.

To ensure that the node shapes are scaled, we set transform shape. To avoid the text being scaled, we override this in the style applied to the labelling nodes.

Note that I've renamed your styles since it is asking for trouble to use something like label which TikZ already uses for, well..., for labels.

In the following example, a full-width figure* is shown first with the default scale factor of 1. A scaled-down version is then used in a regular figure which appears within a column.

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{tikz,kantlipsum}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes.geometric,positioning,calc,decorations.pathreplacing,decorations.markings}

\tikzset{%
  my terminal/.style = {draw, shape = circle , thick, radius = 2cm},
  my area/.style = {draw, shape = regular polygon, regular polygon sides = 6, thick, minimum width = 10cm},
  basestation/.style = {draw, shape = dart, shape border rotate = 90, thick, minimum width = 1cm, minimum height = 1cm},
  transmission/.style = {decorate, decoration = {expanding waves, angle = 7, segment length = 4}, thick},
  my label/.style = {font=\footnotesize, transform shape=false},
}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.tikz}
  \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=\pgfkeysvalueof{cacamailg/picture-scale}, transform shape]
    \draw [help lines, step = 0.5cm] (-5,-5) grid (5,5);
    \node [my area] at (0,0) {};
    \node [basestation] (ENB) at (0,-0.5) {eNB}; % not exactly at center

    \node [my terminal] (UE2) at (-0.5,2) {UE};
    \node [my terminal] (UE3) at (2.5,-1) {UE};

    \draw [blue, transmission] (ENB.north) -- (UE3) node [midway] (celllink1) {};
    \draw [blue, transmission] (ENB.north) -- (UE2) node [midway] (celllink2) {};

    \node [my label] (celllinktext1) at (1, -1.5) {Cellular Link};
    \node [my label, align = center] (celllinktext2) at (-2, -1) {Cellular\\ Link};

    \path [out = 90, in = 210] (celllinktext1) edge (celllink1);
    \path [out = 90, in = 180] (celllinktext2) edge (celllink2);
  \end{tikzpicture}
\end{filecontents*}

\pgfkeyssetvalue{cacamailg/picture-scale}{1}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure*}
  \centering
  \input{\jobname.tikz}
  \caption{Wide figure}
\end{figure*}

\kant[1-10]
\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \pgfkeyssetvalue{cacamailg/picture-scale}{.8}
  \input{\jobname.tikz}
  \caption{Narrow figure}
\end{figure}
\kant[11-20]
\end{document}

First version, scale=1:

full size

Second version, scale=.8 (80%):

80% scaling

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Centering a TikZ picture around an area

[Tex/LaTex] Scale TikZ nodes and shapes for a given canvas size

Related Question