[Tex/LaTex] How to draw a series of paths in a TikZ chronology diagram

tikz-pgf

I am a beginner in LaTeX, trying to use it (and now to promote its use…) for industrial documents. I want to provide diagram relating the chronology of introducing LaTeX in an engineering group.
I had tried the chronology package, but could not change the distance between ticks from year to months.
I have tried to mimic a chronology diagram in the following code.
However i find myself unable to nicely link with the points of the x axis to the nodes describing the steps. I have tentatively added stars (with the idea to make them invisible afterwards) in an attempt to locate where vertical lines drawn from the x axis would be angled to meet the nodes, but could not make this work. Any help appreciated as well as tips on how to improve the diagram.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,patterns,decorations.pathmorphing,decorations.markings,}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1]
\small \sf 
\tikzset{label/.style={draw=gray, ultra thin, rounded corners=.25ex, fill=gray!20,text width=4cm, text badly centered,  inner sep=.5ex, above = 2em, anchor=west,rotate=45}}
\tikzset{tick/.style={below=3pt}}
\tikzset{thinline/.style={ultra thin}}
\draw (0,0) -- (10,0);
%draw arrow 
\draw (0,0)[->, -latex] -- (13,0);
%draw 
\draw (0,0)[->, -latex] -- (13,0);
%draw vertical lines
\foreach \x in {1.2,2.2,4.2,5.2,6.2,8.2,9.2,10.2} 
               \draw (\x cm,2ex) node (\x) {*};
%draw nodes
\draw (0,0) node(A0) [tick] {0} node(B0)[] {};
\draw (1.2,0) node(A1) [tick] {1} node(B1) [label]  {end of initial investigations};
\draw (2.2,0) node (A2) [tick] {2} node(B2) [label]  {start of \LaTeX{} spare time investigations};
\draw (3.2,0) node[tick] { 3} node [] {};
\draw (4.2,0) node[tick]  {4} node[label]  {installation of \LaTeX{} on one office computer};
\draw (5.2,0) node[tick] {5} node [label] {second \LaTeX{} user};
\draw (6.2,0) node[tick] {6} node [label] {first \LaTeX{} document moved to remote server};
\draw (7.2,0) node[tick] {7} node []  {};
\draw (8.2,0) node[tick]{8} node [label]  {third \LaTeX{} user};
\draw (9.2,0) node[tick]{9} node [label]  {several documents moved on remote server};
\draw (10.2,0) node[tick] {10} node [label] {fourth \LaTeX{} user};
\end{tikzpicture}
\caption{chronology of events (time in months)}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

Best Answer

How about this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,patterns,decorations.pathmorphing,decorations.markings,}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1]
\small \sf 
\tikzset{label/.style={draw=gray, ultra thin, rounded corners=.25ex, fill=gray!20,text width=4cm, text badly centered,  inner sep=.5ex, above = 2em, anchor=west,rotate=45}}
\tikzset{tick/.style={below=3pt}}
\tikzset{thinline/.style={ultra thin}}
\draw (0,0) -- (10,0);
%draw arrow 
\draw (0,0)[->, -latex] -- (13,0);
%draw 
\draw (0,0)[->, -latex] -- (13,0);
%draw vertical lines
%\foreach \x in {1.2,2.2,4.2,5.2,6.2,8.2,9.2,10.2} 
%               \draw (\x cm,2ex) node (\x) {*};
%draw nodes
\draw (0,0) node (A0) [tick] {0} node (B0)[] {};
\draw (1.2,0) node(A1) [tick] {1} node (B1) [label]  {end of initial investigations};
\draw (2.2,0) node (A2) [tick] {2} node (B2) [label]  {start of \LaTeX{} spare time investigations};
\draw (3.2,0) node[tick] (A3) {3} node (B3) [] {};
\draw (4.2,0) node[tick] (A4) {4} node (B4) [label]  {installation of \LaTeX{} on one office computer};
\draw (5.2,0) node[tick] (A5) {5} node (B5) [label] {second \LaTeX{} user};
\draw (6.2,0) node[tick] (A6) {6} node (B6) [label] {first \LaTeX{} document moved to remote server};
\draw (7.2,0) node[tick] (A7) {7} node (B7) []  {};
\draw (8.2,0) node[tick] (A8) {8} node (B8) [label]  {third \LaTeX{} user};
\draw (9.2,0) node[tick] (A9) {9} node (B9) [label]  {several documents moved on remote server};
\draw (10.2,0) node[tick] (A10) {10} node (B10)[label] {fourth \LaTeX{} user};

\foreach \nn in {1,2,4,5,6,8,9,10}
{   \draw[blue] (B\nn.west) -- ++(0,-0.75);
}

\end{tikzpicture}
\caption{chronology of events (time in months)}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

You started naming your nodes (e.g A0, B1...), I just named all of them and used a foreach loop to draw a line stzarting from their west anchor 0.75 units down.

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Rotate a node but not its content: the case of the ellipse decoration

The source of the difficulty is that ellipses are constructed in a particular way in TikZ. They are paths that start from the x-axis and proceed counter-clockwise around their centre. The vast majority of the time, the exact parametrisation doesn't matter. You appear to have found the one situation where it does!

In the actual question, you only want to be able to mirror the ellipse, and so draw it starting from the negative x-axis (the title of the question suggests a more flexible approach). That's actually not too hard since we can exploit the symmetry of the ellipse. The key is to provide it with a negative x-radius, since then it will start from the negative x-axis (and proceed clockwise, but we could correct for that by negating the y-radius as well). To do this, we interrupt the call from the node shape to the drawing command and flip the sign of the x-radius. The simplest way to do this is to redefine the \pgfpathellipse macro to do the negation and then call the original macro. The following code does this.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations,shapes,decorations.markings}
\makeatletter
\let\origpgfpathellipse=\pgfpathellipse
\def\revpgfpathellipse#1#2#3{%
  #2%
  \pgf@xa=-\pgf@x
  \origpgfpathellipse{#1}{\pgfqpoint{\pgf@xa}{0pt}}{#3}}
\makeatother

\tikzset{
  reversed ellipse/.style={
    ellipse,
    reverse the ellipse%
  },
  reverse the ellipse/.code={
    \let\pgfpathellipse=\revpgfpathellipse
  }
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[ellipse,
  draw,
  postaction={
    decorate,
    decoration={
      markings,
      mark=at position 1 with {
        \arrow[line width=5pt,blue]{>}
      }
    }
  }
] at (0,0) {hello world};

\node[reversed ellipse,
  draw,
  postaction={
    decorate,
    decoration={
      markings,
      mark=at position 1 with {
        \arrow[line width=5pt,blue]{>}
      }
    }
  }
] at (0,-2) {hello world};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Here's the result:

rotated ellipse

(the arrow got clipped, but you can see where it lies)

[Tex/LaTex] How to define the default vertical distance between nodes

I don't really get the question so I hope this is what you wanted. If you include a full document (such that we copy paste and see the problem on our systems) things are much more easier.

Here, you can change the default setting within a scope but your block style had a node distance which was resetting every time it is issued. I've made it 2mm such that we can see the difference easier.

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows,shapes.geometric,positioning}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[decision/.style={diamond, draw, text width=4.5em, text badly centered, node distance=3.5cm, inner sep=0pt},
                    block/.style   ={rectangle, draw, text width=6em, text centered, rounded corners, minimum height=4em, minimum height=2em},
                    cloud/.style   ={draw, ellipse, minimum height=2em},
                    line/.style    ={draw,-latex'},
                    node distance = 1cm, 
                    auto]
    \node [block] (1st) {1st};
    \node [block, right= of 1st]  (2nd1) {2nd1};
\begin{scope}[node distance=2mm and 10mm]%Here we change it for everything inside this scope
    \node [block, above= of 2nd1] (2nd2) {2nd2};
    \node [block, below= of 2nd1] (2nd3) {2nd3};
    \node [block, right= of 2nd1] (3rd1) {3rd1};
    \node [block, above= of 3rd1] (3rd2) {3rd2};
    \node [block, above= of 3rd2] (3rd3) {3rd3};
\end{scope}
    \node [block, below= of 3rd1] (3rd4) {3rd4};
    \node [block, below= of 3rd4] (3rd5) {3rd5};

    \path [line] (1st) -- (2nd1);
    \path [line] (2nd1) -- (2nd2);
    \path [line] (2nd1) -- (2nd3);
    \path [line] (2nd2) -- (3rd3);
    \path [line] (2nd1) -- (3rd1);
    \path [line] (1st) -- (2nd1);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Rotate a node but not its content: the case of the ellipse decoration

[Tex/LaTex] How to define the default vertical distance between nodes

Related Question