Does Tikz extend the traditional picture element commands?

Question

Is Tikz built on the traditional latex picture element commands such as \put, \makebox, \line,\vector? or is Tikz completely different from the latex picture element commands?

Also, is the "coordinates" in Tikz the same as the "coordinates" in latex picture element commands?

Thank you very much.

No it is completely different but eventually they boil down to the same PDF literals or PS specials. — percusse, May 18 '15 at 22:45
Also, tikz supports 3D coordinate systems (mapping 3D to 2D). This too is a built-in feature of PDF. — John Kormylo, May 19 '15 at 03:41
@percusse by default picture mode doesn't use pdfliterals or \special. — David Carlisle, May 19 '15 at 11:09
@DavidCarlisle My bad. I confused with EPIC stuff and eepic etc. — percusse, May 19 '15 at 11:16

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

TikZ has different system layer options for (La,Lua,Xe)-TeX and ConTeXt. While the original frontend layer is the same the system layer is selected depending on which format is running.

For example, for PS and xDVI output it uses the PostScript \specials and for PDFs it uses the \pdfliterals. The specifications are given in the PostScript and PDF reference documents (e.g., from Adobe website).

Here is a more complete explanation of the underlying machinery: Fundamental differences : PSTricks, TikZ/PGF and others

Does Tikz extend the traditional picture element commands?

1 Answers1