From the Great Rhombicosidodecahedron to Something Much Stranger

This is the great rhombicosidodecahedron, one of the thirteen Archimedean solids.

Here’s its dual, the disdyakis triacontahedron.

I use a program called Stella 4d to make these .gifs and manipulate polyhedra, and one of Stella‘s functions is “try to make faces regular.” I performed this function on the disdyakis triacontahedron, which has ten triangles meeting at some vertices — so 600 degrees’ worth of triangle-angles tried to squeeze in around those points when the faces were made to be regular. This forces the polyhedron to become non-convex — to the point of looking wrinkled.

“That’s weird looking,” I thought. “I wonder what its dual looks like?” With Stella, I could find out with one mouse-click, and I was most surprised by the result.

In this polyhedron, there are thirty orange rectangles, twelve light blue 10/4-gons, and twenty violet 6/2-gons. None of them are regular. Here are what the faces look like in isolation, starting with an orange rectangle, then a light blue 10/4-gon, and lastly a violet 6/2-gon.

If you’d like to try Stella for yourself, there is a free trial download available at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

The Truncated Great Dodecahedron

To get from the last image posted to this one, I used Stella 4d‘s “try to make faces regular” function. (You can get a free trial download of this program right here.)

This Faceting of the Truncated Icosahedron is Also a Truncation of the Great Dodecahedron

This first version shows this polyhedron colored by face type.

In the next image, only parallel faces share a color. This is the traditional coloring-scheme for the great dodecahedron.

Both images were created with Stella 4d, which is available as a free trial download at this website. Also, the obvious change needed with this polyhedron — making its faces regular — is in the next post.

The Great Stellated Dodecahedron, Inscribed Inside a Partially-Invisible Dodecahedron

I made this using Stella 4d, which you can try right here.

Packing Space with Great Rhombcuboctahedra and Octagonal Prisms

…And so on….

[Software credit: I made these images using Stella 4d, which you can try for free right here.]

The Dual of the Frequency-One Geodesic Sphere Based on the Great Rhombcuboctahedron

The faces of this solid include twelve squares, six regular octagons, eight regular hexagons, and 48 irregular hexagons. I made it using Stella 4d, a program you can try for free at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

Three Views of the Final Stellation of the Icosahedron

In this first image of the final stellation of the icosahedron, the faces are colored with a different color for each face, except for parallel faces, which are the same color.

The next image uses red and yellow to color the facelets by type.

Finally, the third image simply uses rainbow color mode.

I used Stella 4d to make these. You can try this program for free at this website.

Three Facetings of the Truncated Octahedron

I created these faceted polyhedra using Stella 4d, a program you can try for free at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

Compound of Three Elongated Octahedra

This was created using Stella 4d, software you may try for free at this website.

A Great Dodecahedron, Inscribed Inside a Partially-Invisible Icosahedron

I made this using Stella 4d, which you can try for free at this website.