[Tex/LaTex] Dimensioning of a technical drawing in TikZ

dimensionstechnical-drawingtikz-pgf

Is there is an easy way to mark dimensions in a technical drawing with TikZ?

dimensions in technical drawing

Is there a library or something?

Edit

I am using XeLaTeX.

Update

I chose Martin's answer because it serves me well for the moment. Ultimately the best solution would be a library that, in an easy and consistent manner, would allow to change the arrow/dimension lines styles, would support polar coordinates, would allow to choose 2 nodes and the vertical distance that you want the dimension to be typeseted etc.

Best Answer

enter image description here

-- New -- Horizontal and vertical cotations.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse,tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\RequirePackage{pdftexcmds}
\makeatletter
\let\pdfstrcmp\pdf@strcmp
\let\pdffilemoddate\pdf@filemoddate

\tikzset{%
    Cote node/.style={%
        midway,
        %sloped,
        fill=white,
        inner sep=1.5pt,
        outer sep=2pt
    },
    Cote arrow/.style={%
        <->,
        >=latex,
        very thin
    }
}

\makeatletter
\NewDocumentCommand{\Cote}{%
    s       % cotation avec les flèches à l'extérieur
    D<>{1.5pt} % offset des traits
    O{.75cm}    % offset de cotation
    m       % premier point
    m       % second point
    m       % étiquette
    D<>{o}  % () coordonnées -> angle
            % h -> horizontal,
            % v -> vertical
            % o or what ever -> oblique
    O{}     % parametre du tikzset
    }{%

    {\tikzset{#8}

    \coordinate (@1) at #4 ;
    \coordinate (@2) at #5 ;

    \if #7H % Cotation traits horizontaux
        \coordinate (@0) at ($($#4!.5!#5$) + (#3,0)$) ; 
        \coordinate (@5) at ($#5+(#3,0)$) ;
        \coordinate (@4) at ($#4+(#3,0)$) ;
    \else
    \if #7V % Cotation traits verticaux
        \coordinate (@0) at ($($#4!.5!#5$) + (#3,0)$) ; 
        \coordinate (@5) at ($#5+(0,#3)$) ;
        \coordinate (@4) at ($#4+(0,#3)$) ;
    \else
    \if #7v % Cotation verticale
        \coordinate (@0) at ($($#4!.5!#5$) + (#3,0)$) ; 
        \coordinate (@4) at (@0|-@1) ;
        \coordinate (@5) at (@0|-@2) ;
    \else
    \if #7h % Cotation horizontale
        \coordinate (@0) at ($($#4!.5!#5$) + (0,#3)$) ; 
        \coordinate (@4) at (@0-|@1) ;
        \coordinate (@5) at (@0-|@2) ;
    \else % cotation encoche
    \ifnum\pdfstrcmp{\unexpanded\expandafter{\@car#7\@nil}}{(}=\z@
        \coordinate (@5) at ($#7!#3!#5$) ;
        \coordinate (@4) at ($#7!#3!#4$) ;
    \else % cotation oblique    
        \coordinate (@5) at ($#5!#3!90:#4$) ;
        \coordinate (@4) at ($#4!#3!-90:#5$) ;
    \fi\fi\fi\fi\fi

    \draw[very thin,shorten >= #2,shorten <= -2*#2] (@4) -- #4 ;
    \draw[very thin,shorten >= #2,shorten <= -2*#2] (@5) -- #5 ;

    \IfBooleanTF #1 {% avec étoile
    \draw[Cote arrow,-] (@4) -- (@5)
        node[Cote node] {#6\strut};
    \draw[Cote arrow,<-] (@4) -- ($(@4)!-6pt!(@5)$) ;   
    \draw[Cote arrow,<-] (@5) -- ($(@5)!-6pt!(@4)$) ;   
    }{% sans étoile
    \ifnum\pdfstrcmp{\unexpanded\expandafter{\@car#7\@nil}}{(}=\z@
        \draw[Cote arrow] (@5) to[bend right]
            node[Cote node] {#6\strut} (@4) ;
    \else
    \draw[Cote arrow] (@4) -- (@5)
        node[Cote node] {#6\strut};
    \fi
    }}
    }

\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\small
\draw[thick,blue,fill=blue!25]
        (0,1) coordinate (A)
    --  (3,1) coordinate (B)
    --  (5,2) coordinate (C)
    --  (5,4) coordinate (D)
    --  (3,4) coordinate (E)
    --  (2.5,3) coordinate (F)
    --  (2,4) coordinate (G)
    --  (0,4) coordinate (H)
    --cycle ;

\draw[red,fill=red!25] (2.5,3.9) circle (.39) ;

\Cote{(A)}{(B)}{1}

\Cote{(B)}{(C)}{2}[red]

\Cote[.3cm]{(B)}{(C)}{2}[%
    red,Cote node/.append style={sloped}]]

\Cote{(B)}{(C)}{2 bis}<h>[Cote node/.append style={fill=blue!25}]

\Cote[.3cm]{(C)}{(D)}{3 bis}[%
        Cote node/.append style={rotate=-90}]
\Cote[.7cm]{(C)}{(D)}{3}
\Cote[1.1cm]{(C)}{(D)}{3 ter}[%
            Cote node/.append style={right}]

\Cote[2cm]{(G)}{(E)}{?$^\circ$}<(F)>

\Cote*[1.2cm]{(2.11,3.9)}{(2.89,3.9)}{4}[%
    Cote node/.append style={left=.6cm,fill=blue!25}]

\Cote[-2cm]{(A)}{(2.5,4.29)}{5}<v>

\end{tikzpicture}

\bigskip

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw[thick,blue,fill=blue!25]
        (0,0) coordinate (A)
    --  (2,2) coordinate (B)
    --  (2,4) coordinate (C)
    --  (0,2) coordinate (D)
    --cycle ;

\Cote[.5]{(A)}{(B)}{5}<H>
\Cote[.5]{(D)}{(C)}{5}<V>
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] can I add a blueprint (technical drawing) to the document

I doubt that there is a special solution for your CAD-files. I include technical drawing in my documents rather often and use \includepdf[options]{file} together with PDF-files. They will give you vectorized drawings. You will need the pdfpages-package.

Here is a short example for this:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}
% Include all pages, don't auto scale
\includepdfset{pages=-,noautoscale}

....

% Include the PDF file somewhere
\includepdf{MY_CAD_FILE.pdf}

....


\end{document}

Please note that this will only work using pdflatex. If you insist on using latex you will have to convert the PDFs to EPS-files and include them via \includegraphics[...]{...}. Nevertheless this will give you vectorized graphics as well.

You could also use media9-package, but this will force the reader to use Adobe. This might not be intended (thanks AlexG for the suggestion).

[Tex/LaTex] Drawing randomly ragged lines in technical drawings

Another alternative, inspired by https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/126179/34618

Resulting Image when running the code below

Code

\documentclass[tikz,border=1cm]{standalone}
%\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\newcommand\irregularline[2]{%
  let \n1 = {rand*(#1)} in
  +(0,\n1)
  \foreach \a in {0.1,0.2,...,#2}{
    let \n1 = {rand*(#1)} in
    -- +(\a,\n1)
  } 
}  % #1=seed, #2=length of horizontal line


\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw[blue] (0,0) \irregularline{0.1cm}{6} -- (6,0)--(6,-2) --(0,-2) -- (0,0);
\foreach \t in {0,0.1,...,6} {\draw (\t,0) -- (\t,-2);}

\draw[red]  (0,2) \irregularline{2mm}{6};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

UPDATE: for vertical drawing. One simply switches the coordinates in the command line as displayed below and an example.

\newcommand\irregularliney[2]{%
  let \n1 = {rand*(#1)} in
  +(\n1,0)
  \foreach \a in {0.1,0.2,...,#2}{
    let \n1 = {rand*(#1)} in
    -- +(\n1,\a)
  } 
}  % #1=seed, #2=length

\draw[yellow,thick] (0,0) \irregularliney{0.1cm}{6} -- (0,6)--(-2,6) --(-2,0) -- (0,0);