# Draw TikZ circles with a specific outer radius

For an archery target I need to draw (and fill) a circle which is e.g. exactly 10cm in diameter including its line. However, when using TikZs circle path command the given radius is the middle of the line, therefore the printed circle is too large.

The solution should depend on the current line width.

Here is my code so far. The drawn lines clearly leave the given radius, but should be drawn completly inside it.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[x=1cm, y=1cm, line width=2mm]
\path [draw=black,fill=yellow] (0,0) circle (5cm);
\path [draw=black,fill=red] (0,0) circle (4cm);
\path [draw=black,fill=green,line width=3mm] (0,0) circle (3cm);
\draw [thin,gray] (-6,-6) grid (6,6);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• I know the answer, but thought this would make a good question for our collection as it is not that trivial for beginners and might come up from time to time. Nov 27 '17 at 12:44
• Do you want to subtract the line width from the radius? Nov 27 '17 at 12:47

in tikz any coordinate of any path command is determined for the infinitely thin lines. the real lines lie over them so that their centers matches.

line width of real lines is accessible with length \pgflinewidth. knowing it, it is simple to correct size of some elementary shapes as are rectangles, squares and circles with considering line widths. for example:

• rectangle: \draw[very thick] (x1+0.5\pgflinewidth,y1+0.5\pgflinewidth) rectangle (x2-0.5\pgflinewidth,y2+0.5\pgflinewidth); where x1, y1 and x2, y2 are coordinates of rectangle. an example of comparison of two rectangles: the red rectangle has width 4cm + \pgflinewidth = 4.1cm, and the width of the yellow (that we can see it borders, it is drawn semitransparent) is exactly 4cm.

\documentclass[tikz, margin=3mm]{standalone}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[line width=2mm]
\draw[red]   (0,0) rectangle (4,4);
\draw[yellow,semitransparent]  (0.5\pgflinewidth,0.5\pgflinewidth) rectangle (4cm-0.5\pgflinewidth,4cm-0.5\pgflinewidth);
%
\draw [thin,gray] (-1,-1) grid (5,5);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• circle: \draw[very thick] (0,0) circle (<radius>-0.5\pgflinewidth); where <radius> circle radius size. an example of comparison of two circles is done similarly as above for rectangles: the red circle has diameter 2cm + \pgflinewidth = 4.1cm, diameter of the the yellow circle is exactly 4cm.

\documentclass[tikz, margin=3mm]{standalone}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[line width=2mm]
\draw[red]   (0,0) circle (2cm);
\draw[yellow,semitransparent]  (0,0) circle (2cm-0.5\pgflinewidth);
%
\draw [thin,gray] (-3,-3) grid (3,3);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


considering above, the circles from question with outer line border exactly as given with circles' radius are as follows:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[x=1cm, y=1cm, line width=2mm]
\path [draw=blue,fill=yellow] (0,0) circle (5cm-0.5\pgflinewidth);
\path [draw=black,fill=red] (0,0) circle (4cm-0.5\pgflinewidth);
\path [draw=black,fill=green,line width=3mm] (0,0) circle (3cm-0.5\pgflinewidth);
\draw [thin,gray] (-6,-6) grid (6,6);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• Thank you. Your comments made my problem easy to understand. Regards. Mar 13 '18 at 17:05

In PSTricks, this problem can be easily solved only by setting dimen to o (outer) that is the default. However, a package called pst-eucl sets dimen to m (middle) by default. One more option is i for inner.

I deliberately set the stroke to dashed so we can also see

• stroking is performed after filling in non clipping paths,
• filling is performed after stroking in clipping paths,
• the middle of stroke is used as the filling or clipping boundary.

\documentclass[border=1cm,pstricks]{standalone}
\psset
{
fillstyle=solid,
fillcolor=yellow,
linewidth=1,
linecolor=cyan,
linestyle=dashed,
}

\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=t](-3,-3)(3,3)
\pscircle{2}
\rput(0,0){outer}
\end{pspicture}
\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=t](-3,-3)(3,3)
\pscircle[dimen=m]{2}
\rput(0,0){middle}
\end{pspicture}
\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=t](-3,-3)(3,3)
\pscircle[dimen=i]{2}
\rput(0,0){inner}
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}


## Note

Certain closed (including ones created via pscustom) and open curves have different default dimen that can be either changed or not. Consult the source code for the details.

## Requested result

\documentclass[border=1cm,pstricks]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=t,fillstyle=solid,linewidth=2mm](-5,-5)(5,5)
\pscircle[fillcolor=yellow]{5}
\pscircle[fillcolor=red]{4}
\pscircle[fillcolor=green]{3}
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}


This is an old question, but anyway, here is an automation method using decorations.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[line width=2mm]
\begin{scope}[every path/.style={decoration={curveto,raise=.5\pgflinewidth},decorate}]
\path [draw=black,fill=yellow] (0,0) circle (5cm);
\path [draw=black,fill=red] (0,0) circle (4cm);
\path [draw=black,fill=green,line width=3mm] (0,0) circle (3cm);
\end{scope}
\draw [thin,gray] (-6,-6) grid (6,6);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


Note : The downside is that curveto replace all curves by numerous small segments, so the circle (which is never really a circle) becomes à huge polygone (with bigger size footprint).

Here is another answer to this old question using clip and doubling the line width. I put this in a macro \innerpath.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\def\innerpath[#1]#2;{
\begin{scope}
\clip #2;
\path [#1,line width=2\pgflinewidth] #2;
\end{scope}
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\innerpath[draw=black,fill=yellow,line width=2mm] (0,0) circle (5cm);
\innerpath[draw=black,fill=red,line width=2mm] (0,0) circle (4cm);
\innerpath[draw=black,fill=green,line width=3mm] (0,0) circle (3cm);
\draw [thin,gray] (-6,-6) grid (6,6);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


Note: There is one problem with this code too. I do not understand why if I move line width=2mm from the first two commands to the hole picture scope, it will modify the line width by 2^2=4 and not by 2.