How to enlarge graphical pictures made within the "picture" environment in Latex?

Question

I am using the picture environment to make a drawing. For example:

\setlength{\unitlength}{0.8cm}
\begin{picture}(12,4)
\thicklines
\put(8,3.3){{\footnotesize $3$-simplex}}
\put(9,3){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(8.3,2.9){$a_2$}
\put(8,1){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(7.7,0.5){$a_0$}
\put(10,1){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(9.7,0.5){$a_1$}
\put(11,1.66){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(11.1,1.5){$a_3$}
\put(9,3){\line(3,-2){2}}
\put(10,1){\line(3,2){1}}
\put(8,1){\line(1,0){2}}
\put(8,1){\line(1,2){1}}
\put(10,1){\line(-1,2){1}}
\end{picture}

This creates a picture like this:

I am wondering how I can then resize the entire image, lines and labels included. Is there a simple line for resizing?

Answer 1

You can try resizebox from the graphicx package. Better yet, use a more powerful drawing package like tikz.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\resizebox{.5\textwidth}{!}{%
\setlength{\unitlength}{.8cm}%
\begin{picture}(12,4)
\thicklines
\put(8,3.3){{\footnotesize $3$-simplex}}
\put(9,3){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(8.3,2.9){$a_2$}
\put(8,1){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(7.7,0.5){$a_0$}
\put(10,1){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(9.7,0.5){$a_1$}
\put(11,1.66){\circle*{0.1}}
\put(11.1,1.5){$a_3$}
\put(9,3){\line(3,-2){2}}
\put(10,1){\line(3,2){1}}
\put(8,1){\line(1,0){2}}
\put(8,1){\line(1,2){1}}
\put(10,1){\line(-1,2){1}}
\end{picture}%
}

\end{document}