A Zonohedron Featuring 662 Faces: Octadecagons, Decagons, Octagons, Hexagons, and Rhombi

Posted on 30 October 2016 by RobertLovesPi

zonohedrified-stellated-icosa

These polyhedral images were created with Stella 4d, a program you may try for free at this website.

zonohedrified-stellated-icosa-662-faces

Zonohedra, Zonish Polyhedra, and Another Puzzle

Posted on 11 August 2016 by RobertLovesPi

In a recent post, I showed many images of zonohedra, then challenged readers to figure out, from the images, what zonohedra are: polyhedra with only zonogons as faces. Zonogons, I then explained, are polygons with (A) even numbers of edges, and with opposite edges always (B) congruent and (C) parallel. Here is another collection of zonohedra. (Individual images may be enlarged with a click.)

Zonohedrified Trunc Cubocta faces are 552 rhombi

2256 rhombic faces Zonohedrified Trunc Cubocta

Zonohedrified Dual of Zonohedrified Triakisocta

The next set of polyhedra shown, below, are not true zonohedra (as all the ones above are), but merely “zonish polyhedra.” From examination of the pictures above and below, can you figure out the difference between zonohedra and zonish polyhedra?

When you are ready to see the solution to the puzzle, simply scroll down.

While zonohedra have only zonogons as faces, this restriction is “loosened” for zonish polyhedra. Such solids are formed by zonohedrifying non-zonohedral polyhedra, and letting at least some of the faces of the resulting polyhedra remain non-zonogonal. Zonish polyhedra are called “zonish” because many (usually most) of their faces are zonogons, but not all of them — in each case, some non-zonogonal polygons (such as triangles and/or pentagons, with their odd numbers of edges) do appear. Non-zonogonal polygons are not required to have odd numbers of edges, of course: simply having opposite edges be parallel, but of different lengths, is enough to prevent a polygon (such as a hexagon, octagon, or decagon) from being a zonogon.

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Software credit: I used Stella 4d to make these images. This program may be tried for free at this website.

Some Zonohedra, and a Puzzle

Posted on 4 August 2016 by RobertLovesPi

Every zonohedron is a polyhedron, but not all polyhedra are zonohedra. Examples of zonohedra appear below. If you don’t already know what zonohedra are, can you figure out the definition from the examples shown, before reading the definition below the pictures?

Zonohedrified Stellated Snub Cube 2346 faces

Zonohedrified Stellated Snub Cube 1770 faces

26522-faced Zonohedrified Augmented Poly

Answer below (scroll down a bit):

Zonohedra are polyhedra with only zonogons as faces. A zonogon is a polygon with an even number of sides, and also with opposite sides congruent and parallel.

Software credit: I used Stella 4d to make these virtual, rotating zonohedra. This program may be tried for free at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

Three Different Views of a 962-Faced Zonohedron

Posted on 4 March 2016 by RobertLovesPi

This zonohedron contains faces which are regular decagons (12 of them), equilateral octagons (30, all of the same type), equilateral hexagons (380 of them, of 7 types, with one of these 7 types, of which there are 20, being regular), squares (60), and non-square rhombi (480 of 8 types, counting reflections as separate types). With each polygon-type, including the reflections, given a different color, this zonohedron looks like this.

If reflected face-types are not counted as separate types, then the coloring-by-face-type uses four fewer colors, and looks like this:

Another view simply colors faces by numbers of sides, and is shown below. Each of these rotating images was created with Stella 4d, a program you may buy, or try for free, at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

A Zonish Polyhedron with 522 Faces, Together with Its 920-Faced Dual

Posted on 18 January 2016 by RobertLovesPi

zonol

The polyhedron above is a 522-faced zonish polyhedron, which resembles, but is not identical to, a zonohedron. True zonohedra are recognizable as that type of polyhedron by their exclusively zonogonal faces. Zonogons are polygons with even numbers of sites, and with opposite sides both congruent and parallel. If you examine the polyhedron above carefully, you’ll find it does not follow these rules. Stella 4d, the polyhedral-manipulation software I use to make these images, allows one to create either a true zonohedron, or a mere “zonish” polyhedron, as the user chooses, starting from another polyhedron (which may, itself, be zonish, a true zonohedron, or neither).

The next polyhedron is the dual of the polyhedron above. This dual has 920 faces. The duals of both zonohedra and zonish polyhedra have a distincive appearance, but, to my knowledge, no one has yet given either set of polyhedra a single-word name. In my opinion, such names are both needed, and deserved.

zono 920 faces dual of the one that had 522 faces

If you would like to try Stella 4d for yourself, there is a free trial download available at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

A Zonohedron with 3540 Faces, Together with Its Dual

Posted on 7 November 2015 by RobertLovesPi

Zonohedra are polyhedra made completely of faces which are zonogons. A zonogon is a polygon which:

Has an even number of sides,
Has opposite sides congruent, and
Has opposite sides parallel.

Parallelograms are the simplest zonogons.

Here is the dual of the zonohedron above; it has 3542 faces. Although zonohedra-duals do have distinctive appearances, they do not, as a class, have a name of their own, to the best of my knowledge. They are definitely not zonohedra, themselves.

Both of these polyhedra were created with Stella 4d, software you may try for yourself, right here.

A Twice-Zonohedrified Dodecahedron, Together with Its Dual

Posted on 25 October 2015 by RobertLovesPi

This polyhedron was created by performing vertex-based zonohedrifications of a dodecahedron — twice. The first zonohedrification produced a rhombic enneacontahedron, various version of which I have blogged many times before, but performing a second zonohedrification of the same type was a new experiment. It has 1230 faces, 1532 vertices, and 2760 edges. All of its edges have equal length. I created the models in this post using Stella 4d, a program you can buy, or try for free, right here.

Here is the dual of this zonohedron, which has 1532 faces, 1230 vertices, and 2760 edges. This “flipping” of the numbers of faces and vertices, with the number of edges staying the same, always happens with dual polyhedra. I do not know of a name for the class of polyhedra made of zonohedron-duals, but, if any reader of this post knows of one, please leave this name in a comment.

The Seven Zonish Dodecahedra with Zones Added Based on Faces, Edges, and/or Vertices

Posted on 20 December 2014 by RobertLovesPi

If a zonish dodecahedron is created with zones based on the dodecahedron’s vertices, here is the result.

If the same thing is done with edges, this is the result — an edge-distorted version of the great rhombicosidodecahedron.

Another option is faces-only. Although I haven’t checked the bond-lengths, this one does have the general shape of the most-symmetrical 80-carbon-atom fullerene molecule. Also, this shape is sometimes called the “pseudo-truncated-icosahedron.”

The next zonish dodecahedron has had zones added based on the dodecahedron’s faces and edges, both.

Here’s the one for vertices and edges.

Here’s the one for faces and vertices.

Finally, the last of this set of seven has had zones added based on all three: faces, vertices, and edges.

All seven of these were made with Stella 4d, which is available at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

The Seven Zonish Icosahedra with Zones Added Based on Faces, Edges, and/or Vertices

Posted on 19 December 2014 by RobertLovesPi

If a zonish icosahedron is created with zones based on the icosahedron’s vertices, here is the result.

If the same thing is done with edges, this is the result.

Another option is faces-only.

The next zonish icosahedron has had zones added based on the icosahedron’s faces and edges, both.

Here’s the one for vertices and edges.

Here’s the one for faces and vertices.

Finally, the last of this set of seven has had zones added based on all three: faces, vertices, and edges.

All seven of these were made with Stella 4d, which is available at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

A Polyhedral Journey, Beginning with Face-Based Zonohedrification of an Icosahedron

Posted on 28 September 2014 by RobertLovesPi

To begin this, I took an icosahedron, and made a zonish polyhedron with it, with the new faces based on the zones of the existing faces. Here’s the result.

Next, I started stellating the polyhedron above. At the sixth stellation, I found this. It’s a true zonohedron, and the first polyhedron shown here is merely “zonish,” because one has triangles, and the other does not. (One of the requirements for a polyhedron to be a zonohedron is that all its faces must have an even number of sides.)

After that, I kept stellating, finding this as the 18th stellation of the first polyhedron shown here.

With this polyhedron, I then made its convex hull.

At this point, the irregular hexagons were bothering me, so I used Stella 4d‘s “try to make faces regular” option. (Stella 4d is polyhedron-manipulation software you can try for free, or purchase, right here.)

The next step I chose was to augment all the yellow trapezoids with prisms, each with a height 1.6 times the trapezoids average edge length.

The next step was, again, to make the convex hull.

At this point, I tried “try to make faces regular” again, and was pleased with the result. The green rectangles became so thin, however, that I had to stop displaying the edges and vertices, in order for then to be seen.

Next, I augmented both the blue faces (decagons) and the yellow faces (dodecagons) with antiprisms, again using a height 1.6 times that of the augmented faces’ average edge-lengths.

Next, I made the convex hull again — a step I often take immediately after augmenting a polyhedron.

This one surprised me, as it is more complicated than I expected. To clean things up a bit, I augmented only the trapezoids (dark pink) with prisms, and dodecagons (green) with antiprisms, again using the factor 1.6 for the augmentation-height.

The next step I chose was to take the convex hull, once more. I had not yet noticed that the greater height of the trapezoidal prisms would cause the dodecagonal antiprisms to be “lost” by this step, though.

Next, “try to make faces regular” was used again.

This last result had me feeling my polyhedral journey was going in circles, so I tried augmentation again, but in a different way. I augmented this polyhedron, using prisms, on only the red trapezoids (height factor, 1.6 again) and the blue rectangles (new height factor, 2.3 times average edge length).

After that, it was time to make another convex hull — and that showed me that I had, indeed, taken a new path.

I found the most interesting faces of this polyhedron to be the long, isosceles trapezoids, so I augmented them with prisms, ignoring the other faces, using the new height-factor of 2.3 times average edge length this time.