PGF/TikZ Manual

# The TikZ and PGF Packages Manual for version 3.1.10

## Libraries

#### 78Views Library

• TikZ Library views

• \usetikzlibrary{views} % and plain
\usetikzlibrary[views] % Cont

This library is used for creating views, which are transformations of a part of a picture so that this part “fits” into a “viewbox”. Mostly, views are useful in conjunction with animations.

A view is essentially a “window” through which you see a graphic. To establish a view, you specify a rectangle – which is the window – and another rectangle surrounding the to-be-viewed graphic. The graphic will then be rescaled and shifted in such a way that the to-be-viewed rectangle matches the view’s rectangle as well as possible. Note that establishing a view causes a canvas transformation to be installed, not a coordinate transformation.

View boxes are only seldom needed in normal graphics; you may prefer to use coordinate transformations or the spy library. Their main application is with animations since you can animate the to-be-viewed rectangle. This makes it easy to create animations in which you zoom in, zoom out, and pan a graphic.

• /tikz/meet=to-be-viewed corner rectangle to-be-viewed corner at window corner rectangle window corner(no default)

• Use this key with a scope to establish a view for the scope. In the argument to the meet key, both rectangle texts are optional. Also, everything following at is optional; when it is missing, the window corners are assumed to be the same as the to-be-viewed corners. The latter are two corners of a rectangle that should be transformed in such a way that it fits inside the rectangle described by the two window corners.

More precisely, at the beginning of the scope a canvas transformation is installed that scales and translates the canvas is such a way that

• 1. the center of the to-be-viewed rectangle lies at the center of the window rectangle and

• 2. the to-be-viewed rectangle has maximum size that it still fits inside the window rectangle.

As mentioned earlier, the main use of views is in conjunction with animations. In order to animate a view, you specify the scope containing the meet command as the target object and then animate its :view attribute:

You can, of course, also specify the animation using the animate myself: key when you specify the animation inside the scope:

• /tikz/view(no value)

• This is an alias for /tikz/meet.

• /tikz/slice=to-be-viewed corner rectangle to-be-viewed corner at window corner rectangle window corner(no default)

• This key works exactly like meet, only the second rule is changed:

• $$2'$$. the to-be-viewed rectangle has minimal size that it encompasses all of the window rectangle.