# A wheel-like figure [closed]

I am trying to draw a wheel-like figure like this. I had used xfig.

I wonder whether I can also use LaTex tikz or other ways to get similar figure with the additional criterion

• the area enclosed by the four red rectangulars/squares --- should have been filled in with a gray shaded but still transparent color (like tunable transparency 10%, 30%, 50%, 70% for each wing of the 4 wings of the wheel) or so.

Do any experts know how to do this?

Thank you! (I will accept the answer very soon)

## closed as off-topic by Raaja, BambOo, Phelype Oleinik, schtandard, MarijnSep 22 at 16:50

• This question does not fall within the scope of TeX, LaTeX or related typesetting systems as defined in the help center.
If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

• XFig supports LaTeX export. (Screenshot of the export menu) – Henri Menke Nov 30 '18 at 4:40
• I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a just-do-it-for-me question. -1 for the same reason. – Raaja Sep 22 at 10:28

Yes, LaTeX can do such things.

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz-3dplot}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.markings}
\begin{document}
\tikzset{->-/.style={decoration={
markings,
mark=at position #1 with {\arrow{>}}},postaction={decorate}}}
\begin{tikzpicture}[thick,scale=5,>=stealth]
\tdplotsetmaincoords{70}{60}
\begin{scope}[tdplot_main_coords]
\draw[thick,blue] (0,0,0) -- (0,0,1.7);
\foreach \X/\Y in {0/0.2,90/0.3,180/0.4,270/0.5}
{\tdplotsetrotatedcoords{\X}{0}{0}
\begin{scope}[tdplot_rotated_coords]
\draw[thick,->-=0.075,->-=0.575,fill=gray,opacity=\Y] (0.1,0,0) -- (1.6,0,0) -- (1.6,0,1.5) -- (0.1,0,1.5) -- cycle;
\draw[thick,red,->-=0.4,->-=0.9] (0.2,0,0.1) -- (0.2,0,1.4)  -- (1.5,0,1.4) --
(1.5,0,0.1) -- cycle;
\end{scope}}
\draw[->,blue,thick] plot[variable=\x,domain=20:-200,samples=31,smooth] ({0.3*sin(\x)},{0.3*cos(\x)},1.8);
\end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• Thanks +1 - you are the tikz god! Can you remind me the function to tune the transparency of the shade area? – annie heart Nov 30 '18 at 4:54
• @annieheart opacity=<value>. In this example the four planes have the opacitie 0.2 ... 0.5, i.e. the \Y value in the foreach loop. – user121799 Nov 30 '18 at 4:56
• I forgot to mention that ->- is from tex.stackexchange.com/a/39282/121799. – user121799 Nov 30 '18 at 5:12