Level distance from edges in cyclic tree

Question

\documentclass[png,tikz,border=10pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{trees,decorations,shadows}

% style definitions
\tikzset{level 1/.style={sibling angle=90,level distance=25mm}}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
[grow cyclic,cap=round]
\node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=12pt] {\large PL} 
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}
    [level distance=1cm]
    child {node {Textual}}
    child {node {Visual}}
}
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}
    [level distance=1cm]
    child {node {General-purpose}}
    child {node {Special-purpose}}
}
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}}
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}}
;
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

As you can see, although I specify level distance=1cm. It measures from the center, so "Special-purpose" is too close to its parent. The edge lengths of "Textual" and "Visual" are also different.

Can I measure level distance from edges so that the edge length is 1cm regardless of the length of the text?

This problem is in a way similar to Set node distance between borders in tikz but that post is not building trees.

Answer 1

An alternative is to use chains, which by default measures distance between node borders. The scopes library makes the code cleaner when you have a lot of branches.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains, scopes}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[start chain, every on chain/.style=join, node distance=10mm and 10mm]
\node [on chain, draw, circle] {PL};
{[start branch=1 going above right]
    \node [on chain, draw, circle] {};
}
{[start branch=2 going above left]
    \node [on chain, draw, circle] {};
}
{[start branch=3 going below left]
    \node [on chain, draw, circle] {};
    {[start branch=31 going left]
    \node [on chain] {Textual};
    }
    {[start branch=32 going below]
    \node [on chain] {Visual};
    }
}
{[start branch=4 going below right]
    \node [on chain, draw, circle] {};
    {[start branch=41 going right]
    \node [on chain] {Special purpose};
    }
    {[start branch=42 going below]
    \node [on chain] {General purpose};
    }
}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Answer 2

This is because the coorinatate used for positioning the nodes sits at the center of each node. You can change that using anchor:

\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{trees}

% style definitions
\tikzset{level 1/.style={sibling angle=90,level distance=25mm}}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[grow cyclic,cap=round]
\node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=12pt] {\large PL} 
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}
    [level distance=1cm]
    child {node[anchor=east] {Textual}}
    child {node[anchor=north] {Visual}}
}
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}
    [level distance=1cm]
    child {node[anchor=north] {General-purpose}}
    child {node[anchor=west] {Special-purpose}}
}
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}}
 child {node[shape=circle, draw, minimum size=8pt] {}}
;
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}