In this post, we will learn how to create a TikZ triangle node shape, change its size, its angles, its color and access to all its anchors. Unlike the circle shape, this one requires loading shapes.geometric TikZ library. 

What is the easiest way to draw a rectangle on latex? I just need a simple rectangle for my students to enter the final answer of a question and I am hoping I don't have to learn anything fancy like Tikz.

In this step-by-step tutorial, we will learn how to draw trees in LaTeX using TikZ package.

Trees as a data visualization tool

Tree diagrams are used to represent hierarchical information, which means there is a root and all the other information in the data can be shown in relation to that root. It is like the root is the base of our tree and all other information are its branches and leafs (nodes).

All trees consist of nodes and branches. Nodes hold the data and branches represent the connections between nodes. Tree structures usually have a node that has no parents—it is called the root node. All other nodes have a parent node, which is a node one step higher in the hierarchy. When there is a directly connected one step lower node, it is called a child node. And nodes that share the same parent are called sibling nodes.

Trees can be used to show the members of a family, data structures, outlines, evolutionary relationships, organizational structures, playoff brackets, and many more types of data.

Frank Herbert's 1963 Dune is to science fiction what The Lord of The Rings is to fantasy: the most popular, most influential and most critically-acclaimed novel in the genre. Herbert's novel was a revelation: before Dune, even the most well-written science fiction had been mostly "wonderful gadget" stories, or political commentary expressed through exaggeration. It had never occurred to anyone that science fiction could offer the literary depth of Dostoevsky, the intricate "wheels within wheels" intrigues of Shakespeare or so deeply fulfill the heroic epic form behind Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Le Morte D'Arthur, The Mahabharata, and Beowulf.

Lucas has often acknowledged Dune as an inspiration. In early drafts of the Star Wars script the influence was much more obvious - the story was full of feudalistic Houses and dictums, and the treasure the Princess was guarding wasn't the Death Star plans, but a shipment of "aura spice." The final version of Star Wars is related to Dune mostly in spirit: a science fiction heroic fantasy treated seriously. Of all the ideas George Lucas inherited from Frank Herbert, the subtle lesson was how to use science fiction to create myth. His lesser borrowings might include:

Those who are familiar with Frank Herbert's famous novel Dune will notice his analogy for the spice, and the surrounding struggle for it, with the crude oil of the Middle East. The novel is symbolic about the dependence of the West on the oil, and the power struggles to control this valuable resource.

But what is not so obvious to the average Western reader, is the sheer quantity of terms that Herbert borrowed from Arabic and Islamic culture, old and new, and incorporated them into his novels.

The following ten characters have special meanings in (La)TeX: