Deliberately Difficult to Watch

difficult to watch

I’ve never tried this before: create a rotating polyhedral image which is difficult to watch, using disorienting effects, such as the rotation of the images of spirals on the rotating faces. The spiral is made of golden gnomons (obtuse triangles with a base:leg ratio which is the golden ratio). This image, alone and without comment, is shown in the previous post, and was made using Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint. In the preparation for this post, it was further altered, including the projection of it onto the faces of a great rhombicosidodecahedron, and creating this rotating .gif. This part of the process was performed using a program called Stella 4d: Polyhedron Navigator, available here. You be the judge, please: is it, in fact, difficult to watch? Did I accomplish my (admittedly rather odd) goal?

Spectral Golden Spiral

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Spectrral Golden Spiral

Spectral 3d6

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Spectral 3d6

Night Bloodlines 3d6

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Night Bloodlines 3d6

Saint Contradiction

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saint contradiction

Our Red-Haired Lady of Parabolas, Circles, and Probabilities

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our red-haired lady of parabolas, circles, and probabilities

Seven Fanciful Designs for Polyhedral Throwing Stars with 7-Fold Dihedral Symmetry

I made these using Stella 4d, a program available at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php. Any of these images may be enlarged with a click.

Polyhedral Peacock

peacock

Created using Stella 4d, available at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

Open Octahedral Lattice of Cubes and Rhombicosidodecahedra

This pattern could be continued, indefinitely, into space.

Augmented Rhombicosidodeca

Here is a second view, in rainbow color mode, and with all the squares hidden.

Augmented Rhombicosidodeca rcm

[These images were created with Stella 4d, software you may buy — or try for free — right here.]

Isosceles Interference Pattern (two versions)

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isosceles interference pattern

isosceles interference pattern