This fun little essay describes how the two interlocking toothed gears shown in the above figure were modelled and typeset using the TikZ graphics typesetting system together with my pkTikZ LATEX package.
As a subsystem of the TEX typesetting system, TikZ makes it possible to draw—or should I say write— vector-based graphical content directly inside a TEX document. The advantage TikZ offers to a technical writer is that textual, mathematical and graphical content may be brought together under what is essentially a single typesetting regime. The disadvantage is that because TikZ, TEX (and LATEX) are programmatic in nature, they can be difficult to work with.
In this essay, then, I record some of my own work with TikZ and LATEX in the hope that it may serve as a reference piece for others who, like me, find TikZ and LATEX challenging yet fun to work with. In this essay, I also demonstrate the use of my pkTikZ package. pkTikZ is a simple LATEX package package which encapsulates my local style and command definitions for TikZ. These definitions have helped to maintain aesthetic consistency across many TikZ pictures.
Download PDF geared-fun.pdf (269 KB)