using tikz to draw a flattened polyhedron

Question

I want to create the net of a flattened hexagonal based box. Each side of the box is a slight trapezium (so in 3D the sides will not be perpendicular to the base, but that's not important to the question). Since each side is the same but only positioned differently I tried the following MWE.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}    
\begin{document}

\newcommand{\side}[1][10]{%
\begin{tikzpicture}
\coordinate (sO) at (0,0);
\path (sO)--++(-90:2) coordinate (sB);
\path (sO)--++({#1}:1) coordinate (sC);
\path (sB)--++({-1*#1}:1) coordinate (sD);
\draw (sO)--(sB)--(sD)--(sC)--(sO);
\end{tikzpicture}%
}


\begin{tikzpicture}
\coordinate (O) at (0,0);
\path (O)--++(0:2)  coordinate (A1);
\path (O)--++(60:2) coordinate (A2);
\path (O)--++(120:2) coordinate (A3);
\path (O)--++(180:2) coordinate (A4);
\path (O)--++(240:2) coordinate (A5);
\path (O)--++(300:2) coordinate (A6);

\draw (A1)
--node[sloped,rotate=90,anchor=west]{\side}(A2)
--node[sloped,rotate=90,anchor=west]{\side}(A3)
--node[sloped,rotate=90,anchor=west]{\side}(A4)
--node[sloped,rotate=-90,anchor=west]{\side}(A5)
--node[sloped,rotate=-90,anchor=west]{\side}(A6)
--node[sloped,rotate=-90,anchor=west]{\side}(A1);

\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

The sides are not flush on the sides of the hexagon. Is there a way to do this elegantly?

Or perhaps my code could be improved, in particular to have the same node information (sometimes I needed rotate=90, other times rotate=-90).

Answer 1

You need to fix inner sep=0pt (or even better -\pgflinewidth) for your \side nodes. Next code shows both options. You can also see why your trapezium are not join to hexagon. Every node has a (by default not zero) inner sep between its contents and node border.

\documentclass[border=3mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}    
\begin{document}

\newcommand{\side}[1][10]{%
\begin{tikzpicture}
\coordinate (sO) at (0,0);
\path (sO)--++(-90:2) coordinate (sB);
\path (sO)--++({#1}:1) coordinate (sC);
\path (sB)--++({-1*#1}:1) coordinate (sD);
\draw (sO)--(sB)--(sD)--(sC)--(sO);
\end{tikzpicture}%
}


\begin{tikzpicture}
\coordinate (O) at (0,0);
\path (O)--++(0:2)  coordinate (A1);
\path (O)--++(60:2) coordinate (A2);
\path (O)--++(120:2) coordinate (A3);
\path (O)--++(180:2) coordinate (A4);
\path (O)--++(240:2) coordinate (A5);
\path (O)--++(300:2) coordinate (A6);

\draw (A1)
--node[sloped,rotate=90,anchor=west, inner sep=-\pgflinewidth]{\side}(A2)
--node[sloped,rotate=90,anchor=west, inner sep=-\pgflinewidth]{\side}(A3)
--node[sloped,rotate=90,anchor=west, inner sep=0pt]{\side}(A4)
--node[sloped,rotate=-90,anchor=west, inner sep=-\pgflinewidth]{\side}(A5)
--node[sloped,rotate=-90,anchor=west, inner sep=0pt]{\side}(A6)
--node[sloped,rotate=-90,anchor=west, draw=red]{\side}(A1);

\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}