1.0: Plane Tessellation 1.

1: Introduction of Tessellation

In geometrical terminology a tessellation is the pattern resulting from the arrangement of regular polygons to cover a plane without any interstices (gaps) or overlapping. The patterns are usually repeating.

Patterns covering the plane by fitting together replicas of the same basic shape have been created by Nature and Man either by accident or design. Examples range from the simple hexagonal pattern of the bees' honeycomb or a tiled floor to the intricate decorations used by the Moors in thirteenth century Spain or the elaborate mathematical, but artistic, mosaics created by Maurits Escher this century.

The design of geometric shapes that individually or in combination cover a flat surface without gaps or overlapping has a long history. About 4000 B.C., the Sumerians in the Mesopotamian Valley built homes and temples decorated with mosaics in geometric patterns. The materials used in the mosaics were thin slabs of burned clay, called tiles. When colored and glazed, tiles served not only as part of the structure of buildings but also as artistic decorations. Later, the Persians showed that they were masters in tile decorations. Similarly, the Moors used congruent, multicolored tiles on the walls and floors of their buildings. Moslem and Islamic tile patterns with striking colors still survive. Roman buildings, floors, and pavements were decorated with tiles which the Romans called tessellate. The Roman word tessellate is the root of our English word tessellation.

1.2: Type of Tessellation

The pattern resulting from the arrangement of regular polygons to cover a plane without any interstices (gaps) or overlapping.

The patterns are usually repeating.

Tessellation

Types of Tessellation

Regular Tessellation

Semi Regular Tessellation

Non Regular Tessellation

Made up of two or
Made up entirely of congruent regular polygons all meeting vertex to vertex. more types of regular polygons which are fitted together in such a way that the same polygons in the same cyclic order surround every vertex.

Those in which there

is no restriction on the order of the polygons around vertices.

There is an infinite number of such

tessellation.

Only 3 regular polygons: Triangle Square Hexagon

comprise different combinations of equilateral triangle, square, hexagon, octagon and dodecagon.

To be a true tessellation there should be a pattern to the arrangement of the polygons.

1.2.1: Regular Tessellation A regular tessellation is a pattern made by repeating a regular polygon. Only three regular polygons tessellate in the Euclidean plane:

Triangle

Square

Hexagon

The interior angles for each of these polygons are as followed:

Shape triangle square hexagon > six sides

Angle 60 90 120 > 120

Since the regular polygons in a tessellation must fill the plane at each vertex, the interior angle must be an exact divisor of 360 degrees. For all the others, the interior angles are not exact divisors of 360 degrees, and therefore those figures cannot tile the plane.

How to Name Regular Tessellation?

Choose a vertex, and then look at one of the polygons that touch that vertex. How many sides does it have?

Since it's a square, it has four sides, and that's where the first "4" comes from.

Now keep going around the vertex in either direction, finding the number of sides of the polygons until you get back to the polygon you started with. How many polygons did you count?

There are four polygons, and each has four sides. Therefore, this is 4.4.4.4 tessellation.

1.2.2: Semi Regular Tessellation

Semi regular tessellations are made up with two or more types of regular polygon which are fitted together in such a way that the same polygons in the same cyclic order surround every vertex.

Properties of Semi Regular Tessellation

It is formed by two or more regular polygons, each with the same side length

Each vertex has the same pattern of polygons around it.

There are eight semi-regular tessellations which comprise different combinations of equilateral triangles, squares, hexagons, octagons and dodecagons.

4.8.8

3.12.12

3.4.6.4

3.6.3.6

4.6.12

3.3.3.3.6

3.3.3.4.4

3.3.4.3.4

Interestingly there are other combinations that seem like they should tile the plane because the arrangements of the regular polygons fill the space around a point. For example:

1.2.3: Non Regular Tessellation Non-regular tessellations are those in which there is no restriction on the order of the polygons around vertices. There is an infinite number of such tessellation.

Taking account of the above mathematical definitions it will be readily appreciated that most patterns made up with one or more polyiamonds are not strictly tessellations because the component polyiamonds are not regular polygons. The patterns might more accurately be called mosaics or tiling patterns. The following definitions and descriptions refer to tessellations of polyiamonds. Examples are restricted, with some notable exceptions, to tessellations of individual polyiamonds.

1.3: Tessellation and Art The Work of M.C Escher

Escher's first print of an impossible reality was Still Life and Street, 1937. His artistic expression was created from images in his mind, rather than directly from observations and travels to other countries.

Life and Street

Well known examples of his work also include Drawing Hands, a work in which two hands are shown, each drawing the other; Sky and Water, in which light plays on shadow to morph the water background behind fish figures into bird figures on a sky background; and Ascending and Descending, in which lines of people ascend and descend stairs in an infinite loop, on a construction which is impossible to build and possible to draw only by taking advantage of quirks of perception and perspective.

Drawing Hands

Sky and Water

Ascending and Descending

Although Escher did not have mathematical training - his understanding of mathematics was largely visual and intuitive - Escher's work had a strong mathematical component, and more than a few of the worlds which he drew are built around impossible objects. Many of Escher's works employed repeated tilings called tessellations.

Examples of Escher-type Tessellation:

Gravity

Bird

Lizard

Kangaroo

Eight Heads

1.4: Fractal Geometry A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity. The term was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured." A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion. A fractal often has the following features:

Features of Fractal

It has a fine structure at arbitrarily small scales.

It has a simple and recursive definition.

It is self-similar (at least approximately or stochastically).

It is too irregular to be easily described in traditional Euclidean

geometric language.

It has a Hausdorff dimension which is greater than its topological dimension (although this requirement is not met by space-filling curves such as the Hilbert curve).

Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms). Natural objects that approximate fractals to a degree include clouds, mountain ranges, lightning bolts, coastlines, and snowflakes.

Examples of fractal geometry:

2.0: Regular and Semi- Regular Solid 2.1: The Five Platonic Solid The Platonic solids, also called the regular solids or regular polyhedra, are convex polyhedra with equivalent faces composed of congruent convex regular polygons. Specifically, the faces of a Platonic solid are congruent regular polygons, with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex; thus, all its edges are congruent, as are its vertices and angles. There are exactly five such solids (Steinhaus 1999, pp. 252-256): the cube, dodecahedron, icosahedron, octahedron, and tetrahedron.

Cube
Number of Faces: 6

Tetrahedron Number of Faces: 4

Dodecahedron Number of Faces: 12

The Five Platonic Solid

Icosahedron Number of Faces: 20

Octahedron Number of Faces: 8

2.1.1: Combinatorial Properties A convex polyhedron is a platonic solid if and only if: i. ii. iii. All its faces are congruent convex regular polygons. None of its faces intersect except at their edges, and The same number of faces meets at each of its vertices.

Each platonic solid can therefore be denoted by a symbol

where:

p = the number of edges of each face (or the number of vertices of each face). q = the number of faces meeting at each vertex (or the number of edges meeting at each vertex). The symbol called the Schlafli symbol, gives a combinatorial

description of the polyhedron.

2.1.2: Dual Polyhedral Every polyhedron has a dual polyhedron with faces and vertices interchanged. The dual of every platonic solid is another platonic solid, so that we can arrange the five solids into dual pairs. i. ii. iii. The tetrahedron is self-dual (its dual is another tetraheron). The cube and octahedron from a dual pair. The dodecahedron and the icosahedron form a dual pair.

If a polyhedron has Schlafli symbol .

, then its dual has the symbol

Every combinatorial property of one platonic solid can be interpreted as another combinatorial property of the dual.

One can construct the dual polyhedron by taking the vertices of the dual to be centers of the faces of the original figure.

The edges of the dual are formed by connecting the centers of adjacent faces in the original. In this way, the number of faces and vertices is interchanged, while the number of edges stays the same.

2.2: Vertices, faces and Edges of Platonic Solid

Solid

Tetrahedron

Cube

Octahedron

Dodecahedron

Icosahedron

Faces

Schlafli symbol

Number of Faces (F)

12

20

Number of Vertices (V)

20

12

Number of Edges (E)

12

12

30

30

Dual

Self-dual

Octahed ron

Cube

Icosahedron

Dodecahedr on

2.3: Nets and Models 2.3.1: Nets of the Five Platonic Solid

Tetrahedron

Cube

Octahedron

Dodecahedron

Icosahedron

2.3.2: Models of the Five Platonic Solid

Tetrahedron

Cube

Octahedron

Dodecahedron

Icosahedron

2.3.3: Nets and Models of Archimedean Solid

Name of Solid Solid Net

Truncated Tetrahedron (3.6.6)

Cubotachedron (3.4.3.4)

truncated cube or truncated hexahedron (3.8.8)

truncated octahedron (4.6.6)

rhombicuboctahedron or small rhombicuboctahedron (3.4.4.4 )

truncated cuboctahedron or great rhombicuboctahedron (4.6.8)

snub cube or snub hexahedron or snub cuboctahedron (2 chiral forms) (3.3.3.3.4)

icosidodecahedron (3.5.3.5)

truncated dodecahedron (3.10.10)

truncated icosahedron or buckyball or football/soccer ball (5.6.6 )

rhombicosidodecahedron or small rhombicosidodecahedron (3.4.5.4)

truncated icosidodecahedron or great rhombicosidodecahedron (4.6.10) snub dodecahedron or snub icosidodecahedron (2 chiral forms) (3.3.3.3.5)

2.3.4: Kepler-Poinsot Solid In geometry, a Kepler-Pointsot polyhedron is any of four regular star polyhedral. They may be obtained by stellating the regular convex or platonic solid differ from these in having regular pentagrammic faces or vertex figures.

Small Stellated Dodecahedron

Great Stellated Dodecahedron

Great Dodecahedron

Great Icosahedron

Small Stellated Dodecahedron

Great Stellated Dodecahedron

Small Dodecahedron

Great Dodecahedron

3.0: Geometric Modelling 3.1: Paper Engineering

The term pop-up book is often applied to any three-dimensional or movable book, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner. Also included, because they employ the same techniques, are three-dimensional greeting cards.

Not until the twentieth century do we see a widespread use of true popups, works containing three-dimensional forms unfolding and rising as the page opens. Although the idea of foldout models attached to a book's surface had occurred to printers much earlier, these instances were rare and primarily confined to books of science and mathematics.) However, the mass production of these three-dimensional marvels can be traced to the work of Theodore Brown, a now obscure paper engineer. His chance connection with S. Louis Giraud resulted in the first systematic use of such devices. These pop-ups appeared in a British series of publications in the 1930s under the imprint Bookano. Shortly thereafter, the American series Blue Ribbon Pleasure Books began borrowing heavily from Giraud's publications.

The construction of pop-up books presented new challenges for paper engineers. The success of this creation of space within the structure of a book hinged on a seamless opening. The shapes had to be designed to rise

quickly enough to surprise, while the paper planes had to be arranged to create volume and proper perspective. Finally, the books had to be sturdy enough to withstand repeated use. Though the sections were die-cut in the printing process, the parts were glued and assembled by hand.

The complexity of paper engineering required to generate genuine pop-up forms resulted in the creation of a small number of established templates. Publishers reused successful models throughout a series, and these models then set the example from which new works were copied. The conventional shapes lent themselves to easy transformations and could fit various texts. They include the single figure, the book, the architectural form, the vehicle, and the landscape scene. Some of the shapes also sustain a second level of action. Once opened, the operator can use a tab or a handle to create another visual effect.

Examples of Pop-up: