vdots without padding above, perfectly vertically centered

Question

I like to use \vdots to obtain pictures like that (without the fbox of course):

The problem is that the \vdots are not vertically centered (the height is huge), and the dots are therefore not placed correctly on the picture. Ideally, I'd like a version of \vdots with the good height, and no depth (to ensure the shape is symetric), so that I can use \raisebox{-.5\height}{\cvdots} for instance to center it around baseline.

Answer 1

Thanks to campa's comment (thanks!), I derived these many versions:

• above baseline
• aligned for math
• centered on baseline
• horizontal and centered on baseline

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{cd}
\usetikzlibrary{backgrounds,positioning}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,shapes.geometric,shapes.misc}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}
\makeatletter
%% https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/528774/excess-vertical-space-in-vdots/528775#528775
\DeclareRobustCommand\cvdotsAboveBaseline{%
  \vbox{\baselineskip4\p@ \lineskiplimit\z@%
    \hbox{.}\hbox{.}\hbox{.}}
}
\makeatother
\DeclareRobustCommand{\cvdotsCenterMathline}{%
  % vcenter is used to center the argument on the 'math axis', which is at half the height of an 'x', or about the position of a minus sign.
  \vcenter{\cvdotsAboveBaseline}%
}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\cvdotsCenterBaseline}{%
  \raisebox{-.5\height}{%
    $\cvdotsAboveBaseline$%
  }%
}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\chdots}{%
  \raisebox{-.5\height}{%
    \rotatebox{90}{% Maybe better options than rotatebox...
      $\cvdotsAboveBaseline$%
    }%
  }%
}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\chdotsLdots}{% Has a small space on the right and left, which chdots does not have 
  \raisebox{\dimexpr\depth-.5\totalheight\relax}{$\ldots$}%
}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \node[fill=red] (A) {A};
  \node[fill=blue,below=of A] (B) {B};
  \path (A) -- (B) node[midway,anchor=center] {\makebox[0pt][r]{$n$ }$\cvdotsCenterMathline$};
\end{tikzpicture}
% Show baseline then vdots:
Order: Original, above baseline, aligned for math, centered on baseline, horizontal and centered on baseline (2 versions):\
ABCp\rule{2cm}{0.1pt}\fbox{$\vdots$}\fbox{$\cvdotsAboveBaseline$}\fbox{$\cvdotsCenterMathline$}\fbox{$\cvdotsCenterBaseline$}\fbox{$\chdots$}\fbox{$\chdotsLdots$}
\end{document}