Placing a figure inside a multirow table cell

Question

Is it possible to place a figure within a multirow cell? The vertical alignment is ruined. Does it have to do anything with tikz's bounding boxes?

The following mwe produces the following result

Edit

Clarification after Gonzalo Medina's answer.

Why is it necessary to restrict the width of the figure? The figure is a box. Is it not possible to just fit this box in the merged cell? I have some figures that have to be rather big in order to be viewable.

Edit 2

After G.M.'s comment I realized that multirow works only horizontally and not vertically. Unfortunately, I can't make the figures much smaller because they don't look nice. So I have to increase the height of the unmerged rows.

Perhaps a work around would be to calculate the height of the *.pdf, divide it by the number of unmerged rows and use \vphantom{} on the unmerged cells to increase their height. Or some kind of a box. Probably increasing the arraystretch would work too if there are no rows without figures.

Is there a more robust way to handle this sitution?

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{tabu}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\centering
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{2}
\begin{tabu}{ccc}
    \toprule
    Sections & Axis & Imperfections\\
    \midrule
    \multirow{2}{*}{\includegraphics[width=3cm]{circular_hollow.pdf}} & $y-y$ & $\dfrac{L}{200}$ \\
                                                                               & $z-z$ & $\dfrac{L}{150}$ \\
    \bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\end{table}

\end{document}

circular_hollow.pdf is produced by the following file

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,fleqn]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames,svgnames]{xcolor}  
\usepackage{mathtools}

\usepackage{tkz-tab,tkz-euclide}
\usetkzobj{all} % all the objects

\usepackage[xetex,active,tightpage]{preview}
\PreviewEnvironment[]{tikzpicture}
\PreviewEnvironment[]{pgfpicture}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[>=stealth]
\tkzInit[xmin=-4.5, xmax=4.5, ymin=-4.5, ymax=4.5]
\useasboundingbox(-4.5, -4.5) rectangle (4.5, 4.5);

% Concrete and steel section
\tkzDefPoints{0/0/O, 0/3/R}
\tkzDrawCircle[fill=black!10,line width=8pt](O,R)

% Steel Rebars + Stirrups
\tkzDefPoints{0/0/O, 0/2.3/R}
\tkzDrawCircle[fill=black!30,line width=2pt](O,R)

\foreach \a in {0,30,...,360}{%
    \tkzDefPoint(\a:2){A}
    \tkzDrawPoint(A)
}

% Axes
\tkzDefPoints{0/0/O, -4/0/Y, 0/-4/Z}
\tkzLabelPoint[left](Y){\huge $y$}
\tkzLabelPoint[below](Z){\huge $z$}

\tkzDrawSegments[line width=2pt,->](O,Y O,Z)

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Answer 1

For those wondering how to put images in tables in general, the salient point is the bracketed fixup after the {*} in \multirow:

\multirow{2}{*}[fixup]{\includegraphics[width=2in]{...}}

For example:

\multirow{2}{*}[0.5in]{\includegraphics[width=2in]{...}}

By adjusting the fixup you can avoid Latex's default behavior of putting the image way too low in the table.

Answer 2

A workaround I've just seen possible, without modifying the graphics, is this:

• Include package bigstrut
• Use the other parameters of multirow:
  • bigstruts: value 2.
  • fixup: value 2mm
• Add a call of \bigstrut for each row being spanned.
• Increasing \arraystretch to 3.

The code for the main tex file is this:

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{multirow,bigstrut}
\usepackage{tabu}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\centering
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{3}
\begin{tabu}{ccc}
    \toprule
    Sections & Axis & Imperfections\\
    \midrule
    \multirow{2}[2]{*}[2mm]{\includegraphics[width=3cm]{circular_hollow.pdf}} & $y-y$ & $\dfrac{L}{200}$ \bigstrut \\
                                                                              & $z-z$ & $\dfrac{L}{150}$ \bigstrut \\
    \bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\end{table}

\end{document}