Placement of graphics in a triangular orientation

Question

How is it possible to import figures into a somewhat triangular orientation? By triangular orientation I mean having one figure and then a further two figures underneath where all figures have a different caption.

I can place figures side by side with the following:

\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.5\linewidth}
\centering
\includegraphics{Figures/fig1.pdf}
\caption{blah blah}
\label{fig:blah1}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.5\linewidth}
\centering
\includegraphics{Figures/fig2.pdf}
\caption{blah blah}
\label{fig:blah2}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}

I would now like to place another figure on top of this to give this triangular orientation I mentioned. How can this be achieved?

Answer 1

You can just add a third minipage before the two you have. (Note that the demo option to graphicx replaces the images with black boxes, remove for your own use.)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}
  \centering
  \includegraphics{Figures/fig1.pdf}
  \caption{Whatnot}
\end{minipage}
\vspace{1em} % add some whitespace after the first figure

\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
  \centering
  \includegraphics{Figures/fig1.pdf}
  \caption{blah blah}
  \label{fig:blah1}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
  \centering
  \includegraphics{Figures/fig2.pdf}
  \caption{blah blah}
  \label{fig:blah2}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

---

(The following is perhaps not relevant for you, but I don't think it hurts to add it.)

Should you want subfloats, that is figures numbered 1a), 1b) etc., with captions for each one as well as one caption for the whole group, you can use the subfig package.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{subfig}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \subfloat[Whatnot]{\includegraphics{fig1}\label{fig:1}}

  \subfloat[Whatwhat]{\includegraphics{fig2}\label{fig:2}}\hspace{1em}
  \subfloat[Whatsit]{\includegraphics{fig3}\label{fig:3}}
  \caption{This and that}
\end{figure}
\end{document}