How can I draw an aircraft diagram using Latex/tikz ?

Question

I want to draw an aircraft diagram with three axes (longitudinal, lateral and normal) using latex/tikz. I also need three views (top, side, and front) of it.

Can you give us a link to an example of such a diagram? Please be more specific! — Christoph, Jun 17 '11 at 11:21
Why do you need to use TikZ? Perhaps you could create the illustration in Inkscape and include the pdf in your LaTex document? You might find that easier. Plus, I doubt anyone is going to just create the illustration that you're describing without you first trying. — Frank Zafka, Jun 17 '11 at 11:22
How far have you gotten in drawing such a diagram? If you want a good answer you should provide a complete minimal working example. Have you started to learn TikZ? — N.N., Jun 17 '11 at 11:22
Start with the tail and proceed nosewise :). TikZ is not well suited for 3d modelling, so usually you cannot obtaing different views just by switching a few parameters here and there. — ipavlic, Jun 17 '11 at 12:08
Why not try something like: sketch2sketch or this sketch3d ? — Frank Zafka, Jun 17 '11 at 13:06
@ipvalic: Yes you can! Sraw it using xyz coordinates and then simply change the x, y, and z vectors. — Andrew Stacey, Jun 17 '11 at 15:08
@Tom: Nice, but obviously done in an external program (look at the maths). — Andrew Stacey, Jun 17 '11 at 15:15
@Andrew: no idea about the maths, but this comment claims that the drawing is done in Sketch 3D and hence uses either TikZ or PSTricks — Tom, Jun 17 '11 at 15:21

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 26 '11 at 11:55

4

Inkscape provides an export option where you use LaTeX for typesetting the text. That might be a solution if you want to draw using a visual editor but still use LaTeX for setting any text.

answered Jun 26 '11 at 11:55

jonalv

11,466

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '11 at 08:51

Probably best to use a vector graphics editor such as Ipe (retains the same fonts for the graphics as specified for your document).

To use the graphic (e.g. fig1.eps) produced by the editor put \usepackage{graphicx} in your preamble and to use the picture somewhere in your document use \includegraphics{path/fig1}.

How can I draw an aircraft diagram using Latex/tikz ?

2 Answers2