Space-filling polyhedron

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In geometry, a space-filling polyhedron is a polyhedron that can be used to fill all of three-dimensional space via translations, rotations and/or reflections, where filling means that; taken together, all the instances of the polyhedron constitute a partition of three-space. Any periodic tiling or honeycomb of three-space can in fact be generated by translating a primitive cell polyhedron.

Any parallelepiped tessellates Euclidean 3-space, and more specifically any of five parallelohedra such as the rhombic dodecahedron, which is one of nine edge-transitive and face-transitive solids. Examples of other space-filling polyhedra include the set of five convex polyhedra with regular faces, which include the triangular prism, hexagonal prism, gyrobifastigium, cube, and truncated octahedron; a set that intersects with that of the five parallelohedra.

An example of a study relating to space-filling polyhedrons is the Weaire–Phelan structure.

The Cube is the only platonic solid that can fill space independently, although tiling space using tetrahedrons and octahedrons is possible.

If the shape of a regular lattice is converted into a prism of the same base. triangular prisms from triangles. cubes (or in this case square prisms) from squares. hexagonal prisms from hexagons. It is possible to have a filled 3-dimensional space by layering lattices on top of one another.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cube</span> Solid object with six equal square faces

In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Octahedron</span> Polyhedron with eight triangular faces

In geometry, an octahedron is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex.

In geometry, a polyhedral compound is a figure that is composed of several polyhedra sharing a common centre. They are the three-dimensional analogs of polygonal compounds such as the hexagram.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhombicuboctahedron</span> Archimedean solid with 26 faces

In geometry, the rhombicuboctahedron, or small rhombicuboctahedron, is a polyhedron with eight triangular, six square, and twelve rectangular faces. There are 24 identical vertices, with one triangle, one square, and two rectangles meeting at each one. If all the rectangles are themselves square, it is an Archimedean solid. The polyhedron has octahedral symmetry, like the cube and octahedron. Its dual is called the deltoidal icositetrahedron or trapezoidal icositetrahedron, although its faces are not really true trapezoids.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Truncated octahedron</span> Archimedean solid

In geometry, the truncated octahedron is the Archimedean solid that arises from a regular octahedron by removing six pyramids, one at each of the octahedron's vertices. The truncated octahedron has 14 faces, 36 edges, and 24 vertices. Since each of its faces has point symmetry the truncated octahedron is a 6-zonohedron. It is also the Goldberg polyhedron GIV(1,1), containing square and hexagonal faces. Like the cube, it can tessellate 3-dimensional space, as a permutohedron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhombic dodecahedron</span> Catalan solid with 12 faces

In geometry, the rhombic dodecahedron is a convex polyhedron with 12 congruent rhombic faces. It has 24 edges, and 14 vertices of 2 types. It is a Catalan solid, and the dual polyhedron of the cuboctahedron.

In geometry, a zonohedron is a convex polyhedron that is centrally symmetric, every face of which is a polygon that is centrally symmetric. Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski sum of a set of line segments in three-dimensional space, or as a three-dimensional projection of a hypercube. Zonohedra were originally defined and studied by E. S. Fedorov, a Russian crystallographer. More generally, in any dimension, the Minkowski sum of line segments forms a polytope known as a zonotope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gyrobifastigium</span> 26th Johnson solid (8 faces)

In geometry, the gyrobifastigium is the 26th Johnson solid. It can be constructed by joining two face-regular triangular prisms along corresponding square faces, giving a quarter-turn to one prism. It is the only Johnson solid that can tile three-dimensional space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uniform polyhedron</span> Isogonal polyhedron with regular faces

In geometry, a uniform polyhedron has regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive. It follows that all vertices are congruent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elongated dodecahedron</span> Polyhedron with 8 rhombic and 4 hexagonal faces

In geometry, the elongated dodecahedron, extended rhombic dodecahedron, rhombo-hexagonal dodecahedron or hexarhombic dodecahedron is a convex dodecahedron with 8 rhombic and 4 hexagonal faces. The hexagons can be made equilateral, or regular depending on the shape of the rhombi. It can be seen as constructed from a rhombic dodecahedron elongated by a square prism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tetrahedral-octahedral honeycomb</span> Quasiregular space-filling tesselation

The tetrahedral-octahedral honeycomb, alternated cubic honeycomb is a quasiregular space-filling tessellation in Euclidean 3-space. It is composed of alternating regular octahedra and tetrahedra in a ratio of 1:2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitruncated cubic honeycomb</span>

The bitruncated cubic honeycomb is a space-filling tessellation in Euclidean 3-space made up of truncated octahedra. It has 4 truncated octahedra around each vertex. Being composed entirely of truncated octahedra, it is cell-transitive. It is also edge-transitive, with 2 hexagons and one square on each edge, and vertex-transitive. It is one of 28 uniform honeycombs.

In geometry, a near-miss Johnson solid is a strictly convex polyhedron whose faces are close to being regular polygons but some or all of which are not precisely regular. Thus, it fails to meet the definition of a Johnson solid, a polyhedron whose faces are all regular, though it "can often be physically constructed without noticing the discrepancy" between its regular and irregular faces. The precise number of near-misses depends on how closely the faces of such a polyhedron are required to approximate regular polygons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honeycomb (geometry)</span> Tiling of 3-or-more dimensional euclidian or hyperbolic space

In geometry, a honeycomb is a space filling or close packing of polyhedral or higher-dimensional cells, so that there are no gaps. It is an example of the more general mathematical tiling or tessellation in any number of dimensions. Its dimension can be clarified as n-honeycomb for a honeycomb of n-dimensional space.

In geometry, a quasiregular polyhedron is a uniform polyhedron that has exactly two kinds of regular faces, which alternate around each vertex. They are vertex-transitive and edge-transitive, hence a step closer to regular polyhedra than the semiregular, which are merely vertex-transitive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parallelohedron</span> Polyhedron that tiles space by translation

In geometry, a parallelohedron is a polyhedron that can be translated without rotations in 3-dimensional Euclidean space to fill space with a honeycomb in which all copies of the polyhedron meet face-to-face. There are five types of parallelohedron, first identified by Evgraf Fedorov in 1885 in his studies of crystallographic systems: the cube, hexagonal prism, rhombic dodecahedron, elongated dodecahedron, and truncated octahedron.

In geometry, a plesiohedron is a special kind of space-filling polyhedron, defined as the Voronoi cell of a symmetric Delone set. Three-dimensional Euclidean space can be completely filled by copies of any one of these shapes, with no overlaps. The resulting honeycomb will have symmetries that take any copy of the plesiohedron to any other copy.

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