A Variant of the Rhombic Enneacontahedron

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A Variation On the Rhombic Enneacontahedron

In the rhombic enneacontahedron, which is shown below, there are thirty narrow rhombi (shown in red) which separate twelve panels of five rhombi each (shown in yellow). This polyhedron is familiar to many people:

Zonohedrified Dodeca

As you can see, the rhombic enneacontahedron has three of these yellow panels meeting at some of its vertices, along with three of the red, narrow rhombi.

For this new variant, at the top of this post, the five-rhombi panels are rotated until only two of them (rather than three) meet at certain vertices, and the thirty red, narrow rhombi between the yellow five-rhombi panels are replaced by twenty equilateral (but non-equiangular) hexagons, also shown in red.

Both of these polyhedra are related to the Platonic dodecahedron, which is shown below. In the rhombic enneacontahedron, the red, narrow rhombi correspond in position to the thirty edges of a dodecahedron. In the new variant, the red hexagons correspond to the vertices of a dodecahedron, rather than its edges. In both of these red-and-yellow polyhedra, the yellow, five-rhombi panels correspond to the dodecahedron’s faces. To see this more clearly, just compare the polyhedra above with this dodecahedron:

Dodecahedron

(All polyhedral images here were created with Stella 4d: Polyhedron Navigator, which you can try and/or buy here.)

Decorated Rhombic Triacontahedron

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Decorated Rhombic Triacontahedron

This rhombic triacontahedron is decorated with the image found in the last post, which I made using Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint. Projecting it on the faces, colorizing them, and making this rotating .gif were all done using another program, Stella 4d, which can be found here — http://www.software3d.com/stella.php — with a free trial download available.

I don’t usually post nets for the polyhedra I make, but I’m making an exception for this one:

Rhombic Triaconta

The Compound of the Rhombic Dodecahedron and Its Own Third Stellation

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The Compound of the Rhombic Dodecahedron and Its Own Third Stellation

Software credit: see http://www.software3d.com/stella.php

A Non-Convex “Bowtie” Polyhedron

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To form this polyhedron, I took a rhombic dodecahedron, and augmented each of its twelve sides with additional rhombic dodecahedra, forming a cluster of thirteen of these space-filling polyhedra. I then stellated this cluster thirty-four times, and this was the unexpected result.

The software I used to do this may be found (and tried for free) at http://www.software3d.com/stella.php.

Icosahedron Encasing a Rhombic Triacontahedron

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Icosahedron Encasing a Rhombic Triacontahedron

Software credit: http://www.software3d.com/stella.php

Icosahedral Cluster of Dodecahedra

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Icosahedral Cluster of Dodecahedra

Software credit: http://www.software3d.com/stella.php

Icosahedral Cluster of Icosidodecahedra

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Icosahedral Cluster of Icosidodecahedra

Software credit: www.software3d.com/stella.php.

Twenty Hexagons with Heptagrammic Designs

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Twenty Hexagons with Heptagrammic Designs

The design on the hexagons appeared in the last post here, and was created using Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint. After that, I used another program, Stella 4d, to place these images on the hexagons of a truncated icosahedron, render the pentagons invisible, and create this rotating .gif file.

Stella 4d may be tried and/or purchased at http://www.software3d.com/stella.php.

Compound of the Great Dodecahedron and the Sixth Stellation of the Icosahedron

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Compound of the Great Dodecahedron and a Stellated Polyhedron

The great dodecahedron here is red, and the yellow polyhedron is the sixth stellation of the icosahedron.

Software credit: http://www.software3d.com/stella.php

Dark Stars II

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Dark Stars II

This, like “Dark Stars” before it, was based on previous posts. I stellated the post two posts ago, several more times. Software credit: http://www.software3d.com/stella.php