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In the figure below, I want to draw attention to the (irregular) hexagons formed by the boundary and some of the interior segments. Currently, they are lightly shaded grey, but I think they don't stand out enough. How can I make them stand out more, without changing the colour of the lines?

A convex polygon with zig-zagging diagnals that alternate colours.

The perfect solution would:

  • Leave all current elements of the figure (except for the shading) intact and recognizable.
  • Not use any colours except for those already in the figure, or #70E500 and #E1004C (possibly desaturated).
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  • There's about a million ways to do this, please edit your question so it can be answered or we'll have to close it as too broad.
    – Ryan
    May 18, 2015 at 8:34
  • @Ryan So I should put more constraints on how I would like to emphasize them?
    – Mangara
    May 18, 2015 at 9:00
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    A hexagon has 6 sides, your shapes only have 4 so they are isosceles trapezoids – you can also use the more generic "quadrilateral". (Not just a technicality. It made me re-read your question several times, searching for where the 'hexagons' were supposed to appear.)
    – Jongware
    May 18, 2015 at 9:42
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    @Jongware Two adjacent trapezoids form a hexagon. The image has four shaded trapezoids that form two hexagons. I want the hexagons to stand out, which they currently clearly do not =)
    – Mangara
    May 18, 2015 at 12:24
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    So I got it wrong because the figure was unclear, which is precisely why you were asking ... well, at least that's fair. The thick dark blue lines were guiding me, and even now I 'know' where the hexagons are, I'm still have trouble 'seeing' them.
    – Jongware
    May 18, 2015 at 12:36

2 Answers 2

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Personally, I think you should show several pictures each with a separate hexagon to drive the point home. The advantage is that this is more explicit and leaves less to misunderstanding

enter image description here

Image 1: Different hexagons in shape. There are others, I added the middle one to demonstrate one.

PS: the problem with your statement is that there are indeed even other hexagons than you state. Even slanted ones I added the middle one to demonstrate.

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  • Thanks! This is definitely a good option if I can't find a nice way to do it with one figure. I know about the other hexagons in there, but I only need the two I highlighted.
    – Mangara
    May 18, 2015 at 17:24
  • @Mangara Your thesis is on paper yes? Then side by side is better but yes you can do this inst one image too Offset the colored areas so they are smaller than the triangle strip then you can have them in the same image. Its just less obvious what the image means. PS: what color profile is the colors #70E500, #E1004C in?
    – joojaa
    May 18, 2015 at 17:35
  • It is on paper, but the original image is only part of a larger image, so this would introduce a figure before that. But perhaps that's a small price to pay for clarity. The colours are RGB hex colours.
    – Mangara
    May 18, 2015 at 17:42
  • @Mangara you do understand that RGB hex colors do not mean anything without attached profile info. Your colors are a bit possiblya a problematic for cmyk printers
    – joojaa
    May 18, 2015 at 17:45
  • Sorry, no. I'm not well-versed in colour theory. I also don't know the particular printer that will be used for the paper version, and I would like the document to look nice in pdf form on a variety of screens, as I think that most readers will see it that way. Does that help?
    – Mangara
    May 18, 2015 at 17:49
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This may seem too obvious, but here's an idea. It leaves all colors as-is, and introduces immediately identifiable elements to help delineate between the subtle hex shapesenter image description here

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