physketch

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TikZ styles, pictures and commands for physics drawings.

Version 0.1.0, 2026-10-20

physketch is a LaTeX package for the drawings found in physics problems. It provides:

• fixed surfaces, bodies and pistons, springs, pulleys, rods divided into equal parts and fulcrums;
• forces, rotation arrows and vectors perpendicular to the drawing plane;
• liquids, gas, ice and glass;
• light sources, rays, lenses, screens and mirrors;
• current sources and meters for circuits;
• engineering-style distances and angles.

It also fixes a consistent house style for line widths, gaps and arrow tips.

Example

\usepackage{physketch}
...
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \draw[surface] (0,0) -- (4,0);
  \draw[body, lifted] (1,0) rectangle ++(1,0.8);
  \draw[force] (1.5,0.4) -- ++(1.2,0) node[above] {$\vec F$};
  \dist[l=$a$] (1,0.8) -- (2,0.8);
\end{tikzpicture}

Parts

The package consists of parts that can be loaded separately; every part loads physketch.general.

Old drawings made with design.sty, the predecessor of the package, compile with the separate file physketch.legacy, which cannot be combined with the other parts.

Documentation

The full documentation is physketch-doc.pdf; it is built from physketch-doc.tex with l3build doc.

Requirements

TikZ/PGF 3.1.5 or later (for patterns.meta), LaTeX 2020-10-01 or later. physketch.circuits needs circuitikz.

Installation

Put all physketch*.sty files somewhere in your TEXMFHOME, for example ~/texmf/tex/latex/physketch/, or next to your document.

Author and license

Copyright (C) 2024–2026 Azamat Gimaev.

This work may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3c of this license or (at your option) any later version. The latest version of this license is in https://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt.

This work has the LPPL maintenance status maintained. The Current Maintainer of this work is Azamat Gimaev.

The work consists of the files physketch*.sty and physketch-doc.tex.