Alignment troubles with tabular, pgfuseimage and multirows

Question

I'm stuck with some alignment problems in tabular:

and in draft mode:

The point is that the bottom left one should take the whole space without overflooding the bottom (so to speak)

The original MWE that gave these images is the following:

\documentclass[9pt,draft]{beamer}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{tikz}

\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{mousse-hexa}{img/foam2D-honeycomb.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{mousse-grain}{img/foam2D-grain-boundaries.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{mousse-desor}{img/foam2D-disordered.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{murissement}{img/foam2D-coarsening.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.30\textheight]{graphe-mur}{img/lauriesfoam.png}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{title}
\begin{tabular}{c l}
   \pgfuseimage{murissement}                 & \pgfuseimage{mousse-hexa}  \\
   \multirow{2}{*}{\pgfuseimage{graphe-mur}} & \pgfuseimage{mousse-grain} \\
                                             & \pgfuseimage{mousse-desor} \\
\end{tabular}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 1

I think a TiKZ matrix could help you. From you question I understand that you want to place lauriesfoam horizontally aligned with south of foam2D-disordered. Next code shows how to do it with a TiKZ matrix. First a matrix with upper row a right most column is constructed and after that, a node containing lauriesfoam figure is aligned with previous ones. In left column last node is horizontally and vertically centered and right column shows previous option. With calc library help you can compute more complex alignments.

\documentclass[9pt,draft]{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{mousse-hexa}{img/foam2D-honeycomb.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{mousse-grain}{img/foam2D-grain-boundaries.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{mousse-desor}{img/foam2D-disordered.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.15\textheight]{murissement}{img/foam2D-coarsening.png}
\pgfdeclareimage[interpolate=true,height=.30\textheight]{graphe-mur}{img/lauriesfoam.png}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{title}
\begin{columns}[t]
\column{.5\textwidth}
\begin{tikzpicture}[ampersand replacement=\&]
\matrix[column sep=2mm,row sep=3mm]{
   \node[draw] (A11) {\pgfuseimage{murissement}};                 \& \node[draw] (A12) {\pgfuseimage{mousse-hexa}};  \\
    \& \node[draw] (A22) {\pgfuseimage{mousse-grain}}; \\ \& \node[draw] (A32) {\pgfuseimage{mousse-desor}}; \\
};
\path (A22.south) -- coordinate [midway] (C) (A32.north);
\fill (C) circle (2pt);
\node[draw] (D) at (A11|-C) {\pgfuseimage{graphe-mur}};
\end{tikzpicture}
\column{.5\textwidth}
\begin{tikzpicture}[ampersand replacement=\&]
\matrix[column sep=2mm,row sep=3mm]{
   \node[draw] (A11) {\pgfuseimage{murissement}};                 \& \node[draw] (A12) {\pgfuseimage{mousse-hexa}};  \\
    \& \node[draw] (A22) {\pgfuseimage{mousse-grain}}; \\ \& \node[draw] (A32) {\pgfuseimage{mousse-desor}}; \\
};
\path (A22.south) -- coordinate [midway] (C) (A32.north);
\fill (C) circle (2pt);
\node[draw,anchor=south] (D) at (A11|-A32.south) {\pgfuseimage{graphe-mur}};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{columns}
 \end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 2

A simple solution is to lower the big image, pretending it has no height and depth with \smash:

\begin{frame}{title}
\begin{tabular}{c l}
\pgfuseimage{murissement} & \pgfuseimage{mousse-hexa}  \\
\smash{\raisebox{\dimexpr-.15\textheight-2pt\relax}{\pgfuseimage{graphe-mur}}}
                          & \pgfuseimage{mousse-grain} \\
                          & \pgfuseimage{mousse-desor} \\
\end{tabular}
\end{frame}