Pictured above is the most familiar hexagonal tessellation. I’ve found some additional tessellations which use equilateral (but non-equiangular) hexagons, and have radial symmetry. They appear, using various coloring-schemes, below.
Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint were both used to make the images on the faces of this polyhedron, and then Stella 4d was used to put it all together and create this rotating image. Stella may be bought, and/or tried for free, at www.software3d.com/Stella.php.
The enneagramic mandalas on the square faces of this cuboctahedron are from the last post, with inverted-color, smaller versions of the same image on the triangular faces. These mandalas were created using Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint. Projecting them onto the faces of the cuboctahedron, and then creating this rotating, pulsating .gif image, however, took a third program: Stella 4d, which you can buy, or try for free, at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.
These enneagrams are of the {9/3} variety, which means each one is made of three concentric, equilateral triangles. One of these enneagrams is at the center; the other nine surround it.
The rest will each get bigger if you click on them.
This polyhedron is also known as the truncated icosidodecahedron. However, I prefer the name which appears in the title of this post.
I made the image which appears on each face with Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint, and then used Stella 4d to project this image onto each face of this polyhedron, and create this rotating .gif image.
If you’d like to try Stella 4d for free, just visit this site: http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php. To my knowledge, a free trial download is only available for Stella 4d, but not for the other programs mentioned above.
Due to an unusual amount of Winter weather this school year, the school year where I teach has been extended to June 6, creating what many are calling “the school year that will not end.” It will end, of course, but the already-long wait for Summer vacation is getting to many of us — students, parents, teachers, and administrators alike.
The countdown is now at nine school days left: four next week, and five the week after that. In honor of this point in the countdown, I created this image based on the number nine, using Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint.
The images on the faces of this polyhedron may be seen in still black and white in the previous post. I used Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint to make the flat image, and then Stella 4d to put it all together. You may try Stella for free at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.
RobertLovesPi.net 