[Tex/LaTex] How to draw THICK arrows (shown below in the figure) in tikz

arrowstikz-pgf

I want to draw something like this:

enter image description here

I am not able to draw this. This is what I have drawn:

enter image description here

This is the code:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
%\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning,arrows}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{scalefnt}

\begin{document}


\begin{tikzpicture}[fill=blue,ultra thick, scale = 0.75, transform shape,font=\Large]


\node[rectangle] (a1) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm] {};
\coordinate[right=0.75cm of a1] (a4)  {};
\node[rectangle] (a2) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,right of=a1,node distance=3cm] {};
\node[rectangle] (a3) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,below of=a4,node distance=3cm] {};

\node[rectangle] (a5) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,right of=a3,node distance=4cm] {};
\node[rectangle] (a6) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,above of=a5,node distance=1.25cm] {};

\node[rectangle] (a7) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,below right of=a5,node distance=3cm] {};



\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

How to draw these kind of arrows?

Best Answer

here is a solution based on postaction and inspired by Is it possible to change the size of an arrowhead in TikZ/PGF? (flying sheep answer):

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
%\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning,arrows}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{scalefnt}

\begin{document}


\begin{tikzpicture}[fill=blue,ultra thick, scale = 0.75, transform shape,font=\Large]
\tikzstyle{myarrows}=[line width=1mm,draw=blue,-triangle 45,postaction={draw, line width=3mm, shorten >=4mm, -}]

\node[rectangle] (a1) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm] {};
\coordinate[right=0.75cm of a1] (c1)  {};
\node[rectangle] (a2) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,right of=a1,node distance=3cm] {};
\node[rectangle] (a3) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,below of=c1,node distance=3cm] {};
\node[rectangle] (a5) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,right of=a3,node distance=4cm] {};
\node[rectangle] (a6) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,above of=a5,node distance=1.25cm] {};
\node[rectangle] (a7) [draw, minimum width=1.5cm,minimum height=1cm,below right of=a5,node distance=3cm] {};
\coordinate[right=0.2cm of a2]  (c2)  {};
\coordinate[left=0cm of a6]     (c3)  {};
\coordinate[below=1.5cm of a5]  (c4)  {};

\draw [draw=blue,line width=3mm]   (a1)--(a2);

\draw [myarrows](c1)--(a3);
\draw [myarrows](c2)--(c3);
\draw [myarrows](a3)--(a5);
\draw [myarrows](a5)--(c4)--(a7);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

what I did was to define an arrow style where the arrow is drawn two times: the first time with a line width such that the arrow head size is like the one in your original image; the second time with a line width such that the arrow is tick and without the arrowhead. This is achieved with the postaction option you can see in the myarrows style definition.

You may want to tweak the rectangle appearance so to make them look like those of your original image.

Forgot to say that if you want to change the thickness of the arrow you just need to change the two line width values in \tikzstile{myarrows} until you find those that suit your needs.

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