[Tex/LaTex] Mexican hat in TikZ

tikz-pgf

How would we typeset a “mexican hat” like the following

mexican hat

in TikZ?

Best Answer

Well the top of the hat looks like a statistical normal distribution. So I would plot that function. Furthermore you could use an arc for the upper part of the hat. And at last you could use a curve for the lower part of the hat. I have tried producing the hat with the following code:

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=3]
\draw[very thick,domain=-1.5:1.5,xscale=0.5,smooth,variable=\x] plot ({\x},{(1.3*2.718281828^(-0.5*\x*\x))});
\draw[very thick] (0,-0 cm) arc (-90:70:1.5 cm and 0.4 cm);
\draw[very thick] (0,-0 cm) arc (270:110:1.5 cm and 0.4 cm);
\begin{scope}[yshift=0.4 cm]
\draw[very thick] (-10 : -1.5 cm and 0.4 cm) .. controls (-1.25,-0.8) and (1.25,-0.8) .. (-170 : -1.5 cm and 0.4 cm);
\end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}

I agree it's not perfect, but feel free to improve. :D

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to typeset “TikZ”

Look at the manual. It’s typeset as Ti\textit{k}Z …

You may create a new command if you would like to use it more than one time. If you use xspace, it takes care of the following space.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xspace}
\newcommand{\TikZ}{Ti\textit{k}Z\xspace}

\begin{document}
\TikZ with a following space and without \TikZ.
\end{document}

_{For further reading: Drawbacks of xspace}

As said in the the comments, there are some other possible definitions:

Ti\emph{k}Z, which will have an italic k in upright context and an upright k in italic context. So the k is always emphasizes, which may satisfies the source of the name “TikZ ist kein Zeichenprogramm” (TikZ is no drawing software), where the word kein should be emphasized.
\textup{Ti\textit{k}Z} will produce the version with upright T, i and Z and italic k in all cases. This may be preferable, when the original appearance should be kept for the whole document.

[Tex/LaTex] How to draw a “Mexican hat potential” using 3dplot

PGFPlots can plot 3D parametric functions. Here's the output using the function that is used for the Wikipedia image:

enter image description here

\documentclass[border=5mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \begin{axis}[
            hide axis,
            samples=30,
            domain=0:360,
            y domain=0:1.25
        ]
        \addplot3 [surf, shader=flat, draw=black, fill=white, z buffer=sort] ({sin(x)*y}, {cos(x)*y}, {(y^2-1)^2});
        \end{axis}
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to typeset “TikZ”

[Tex/LaTex] How to draw a “Mexican hat potential” using 3dplot

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