In geometry, an alternation or partial truncation, is an operation on a polygon, polyhedron, tiling, or higher dimensional polytope that removes alternate vertices. [1]
Coxeter labels an alternation by a prefixed h, standing for hemi or half. Because alternation reduces all polygon faces to half as many sides, it can only be applied to polytopes with all even-sided faces. An alternated square face becomes a digon, and being degenerate, is usually reduced to a single edge.
More generally any vertex-uniform polyhedron or tiling with a vertex configuration consisting of all even-numbered elements can be alternated. For example, the alternation of a vertex figure with 2a.2b.2c is a.3.b.3.c.3 where the three is the number of elements in this vertex figure. A special case is square faces whose order divides in half into degenerate digons. So for example, the cube 4.4.4 is alternated as 2.3.2.3.2.3 which is reduced to 3.3.3, being the tetrahedron, and all the 6 edges of the tetrahedra can also be seen as the degenerate faces of the original cube.
A snub (in Coxeter's terminology) can be seen as an alternation of a truncated regular or truncated quasiregular polyhedron. In general a polyhedron can be snubbed if its truncation has only even-sided faces. All truncated rectified polyhedra can be snubbed, not just from regular polyhedra.
The snub square antiprism is an example of a general snub, and can be represented by ss{2,4}, with the square antiprism, s{2,4}.
This alternation operation applies to higher-dimensional polytopes and honeycombs as well, but in general most of the results of this operation will not be uniform. The voids created by the deleted vertices will not in general create uniform facets, and there are typically not enough degrees of freedom to allow an appropriate rescaling of the new edges. Exceptions do exist, however, such as the derivation of the snub 24-cell from the truncated 24-cell.
Examples:
Coxeter also used the operator a, which contains both halves, so retains the original symmetry. For even-sided regular polyhedra, a{2p,q} represents a compound polyhedron with two opposite copies of h{2p,q}. For odd-sided, greater than 3, regular polyhedra a{p,q}, becomes a star polyhedron.
Norman Johnson extended the use of the altered operator a{p,q}, b{p,q} for blended, and c{p,q} for converted, as , , and respectively.
The compound polyhedron known as the stellated octahedron can be represented by a{4,3} (an altered cube), and , .
The star polyhedron known as the small ditrigonal icosidodecahedron can be represented by a{5,3} (an altered dodecahedron), and , . Here all the pentagons have been alternated into pentagrams, and triangles have been inserted to take up the resulting free edges.
The star polyhedron known as the great ditrigonal icosidodecahedron can be represented by a{5/2,3} (an altered great stellated dodecahedron), and , . Here all the pentagrams have been alternated back into pentagons, and triangles have been inserted to take up the resulting free edges.
A similar operation can truncate alternate vertices, rather than just removing them. Below is a set of polyhedra that can be generated from the Catalan solids. These have two types of vertices which can be alternately truncated. Truncating the "higher order" vertices and both vertex types produce these forms:
Name | Original | Alternated truncation | Truncation | Truncated name |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cube Dual of rectified tetrahedron | Alternate truncated cube | |||
Rhombic dodecahedron Dual of cuboctahedron | Truncated rhombic dodecahedron | |||
Rhombic triacontahedron Dual of icosidodecahedron | Truncated rhombic triacontahedron | |||
Triakis tetrahedron Dual of truncated tetrahedron | Truncated triakis tetrahedron | |||
Triakis octahedron Dual of truncated cube | Truncated triakis octahedron | |||
Triakis icosahedron Dual of truncated dodecahedron | Truncated triakis icosahedron |
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In geometry, a truncated icosidodecahedron, rhombitruncated icosidodecahedron, great rhombicosidodecahedron, omnitruncated dodecahedron or omnitruncated icosahedron is an Archimedean solid, one of thirteen convex, isogonal, non-prismatic solids constructed by two or more types of regular polygon faces.
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In Euclidean geometry, rectification, also known as critical truncation or complete-truncation, is the process of truncating a polytope by marking the midpoints of all its edges, and cutting off its vertices at those points. The resulting polytope will be bounded by vertex figure facets and the rectified facets of the original polytope.
In geometry, a uniform polyhedron has regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive—there is an isometry mapping any vertex onto any other. It follows that all vertices are congruent. Uniform polyhedra may be regular, quasi-regular, or semi-regular. The faces and vertices don't need to be convex, so many of the uniform polyhedra are also star polyhedra.
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In geometry, a snub polyhedron is a polyhedron obtained by performing a snub operation: alternating a corresponding omnitruncated or truncated polyhedron, depending on the definition. Some, but not all, authors include antiprisms as snub polyhedra, as they are obtained by this construction from a degenerate "polyhedron" with only two faces.
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Seed | Truncation | Rectification | Bitruncation | Dual | Expansion | Omnitruncation | Alternations | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
t0{p,q} {p,q} | t01{p,q} t{p,q} | t1{p,q} r{p,q} | t12{p,q} 2t{p,q} | t2{p,q} 2r{p,q} | t02{p,q} rr{p,q} | t012{p,q} tr{p,q} | ht0{p,q} h{q,p} | ht12{p,q} s{q,p} | ht012{p,q} sr{p,q} |