Biomathematicus

Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics

Professional achievements and contributions often do not follow a simple linear progression, but rather may be cumulative and intersecting in nature. Some tasks can be parallel and complex and some achievements can be incremental and hard to track and highlight in a linear timeline.

Intersecting bubbles offer an interesting solution to complex timelines. They can be built manually with a tool such as PowerPoint, or programmatically with LaTeX or some other programming language.

Professional timeline with activity bubbles
Professional timeline with activity bubbles. See it in a CV here. This solution was expanded from the StackExchange answer found at http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/159856/13304

The source code below produces the the graphic above. It is also in GitHub at https://github.com/biomathematicus/ComplexTimeline

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\hs}{\hspace{2mm}}

\usepackage[rm]{roboto}
\usepackage{xcolor}
% https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/
\definecolor{CBRed}{HTML}{D81B60}
\definecolor{CBBlue}{HTML}{1E88E5}
\definecolor{CBGold}{HTML}{FFC107}
\definecolor{CBGreen}{HTML}{004D40}
% https://jfly.uni-koeln.de/color/ 
%\definecolor{CBRed}{RGB}{213,94,0}% Vermillion
%\definecolor{CBBlue}{RGB}{86,180,233}% Sky Blue
%\definecolor{CBGold}{RGB}{240,228,66}% Yellow
%\definecolor{CBGreen}{RGB}{0,158,115}% Greenish Blue

\usepackage{datatool}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage[colorlinks, bookmarksopen, backref,
        	pdfauthor={Your name},
        	pdftitle={Your name},
        	pdfcreator={pdftex},
        	pdfsubject={CV},
        	linkcolor={blue},
        	anchorcolor={black},
        	citecolor={green},
        	filecolor={magenta},
        	menucolor={blue},
        	plainpages=false,pdfpagelabels,
        	urlcolor={blue}]{hyperref}

\begin{document}
%=============================================
%      B E G I N       T I M E L I N E
%=============================================
\usetikzlibrary{shadows}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning}

% The following section will create the file tasks.dat
% Once the file is created, modifications will need to happen there
\begin{filecontents*}{tasks.dat}
phase,taskid,name,position,size,orientation,label,anchor,href
Publications,Author1,Fiction,2.5,5,1.68,above,north,tl:Author
Publications,Author2,Humanities,9,11,0.49,above,north,tl:HumSch
Publications,SciSch,Math \& Science,19,18,0.1,above,north,tl:SciSch
Industry,eng1,Laboratrio Multimedial (Col.),2,3,-2.68,below,south,tl:Industry
Industry,eng2,CAVIIAR (Col.),5,3,-1.8,below,south,tl:Industry
Industry,eng3,ISF (FL),10,7,-0.87,below,south,tl:Industry
Industry,eng4,CAVIIAR Inc (FL),15,4,-1.9,below,south,tl:Industry
Academia,PDUM,PD UM,14.5,1,5.5,above,north,tl:Academic
Academia,PDOSU,PD OSU,16,2.5,1,above,north,tl:Academic
Academia,UGA1,Ast. Prof. UGA,19,4,1,above,north,tl:Academic
Academia,UGA2,Asc. Prof. UGA,22.5,3,1,above,north,tl:Academic
Academia,UGA2,Prof. UTSA,26,4,1,above,north,tl:Academic
Admin,Dir1,Lead of OPE,18.5,3,-0.8,below,south,tl:Admin
Admin,Dir2,Director of LACSI,23,1.5,-6.5,below,south,tl:Admin
Admin,Dir3,Chair of Math,26,3.7,-0.6,below,south,tl:Admin
\end{filecontents*}

\DTLloaddb[noheader=false]{tasks}{tasks.dat}
%
{
    %\leftskip0em
    \resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{%
        \begin{tikzpicture}[year/.style={font=\bfseries, text=black},
            Publications/.style={fill=CBGreen,circle,opacity=0.2},
            Industry/.style={fill=CBBlue,circle,opacity=1},
            Academia/.style={fill=CBGold,circle,opacity=1},
            Admin/.style={fill=CBRed,circle,opacity=1}]
        \Large
            %%%%% Tasks
            \DTLforeach*{tasks} 
                {\phase=phase, 
                \taskid=taskid, 
                \name=name, 
                \position=position,
                \size=size, 
                \orientation=orientation,
                \label=label,
                \anchor=anchor,
                \hyref=href}
                {\node(\taskid)[\phase, minimum size=\size*2 em] at (\position, 0) {};\draw (node cs:name=\taskid, anchor=\anchor) to ++(0,\size*\orientation) node[\label, scale=1.4] {\hyperlink{\hyref}{\name}};}
            \filldraw[fill=white, draw=white,line width=1ex,opacity=0.75] (-3.5,-0.15) rectangle (30,0.15);
            %%%%% Weeks.
            \node[year] at (0,0) {1995};
            \node[year] at (5,0) {2000};
            \node[year] at (10,0) {2005};
            \node[year] at (15,0) {2010};
            \node[year] at (20,0) {2015};
            \node[year] at (25,0) {2020};
            \node[year] at (28,0) {2023};
        \end{tikzpicture}
    }
}
\begin{center}
	\fboxsep=2mm \fboxrule=0mm
	\fcolorbox{black}{CBBlue}{\null} Industry \& Entrepreneurship \hs
	\fcolorbox{black}{CBRed}{\null} Academic Administration \hs \\ 
	\fcolorbox{black}{CBGreen!20}{\null} Publications \hspace{5mm}
	\fcolorbox{black}{CBGold}{\null} Academic Appointments \hs
\end{center}
%=============================================
%         E N D      T I M E L I N E
%=============================================
\end{document}

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