written by Rene K. Mueller, Copyright (c) 2007, last updated Wed, January 9, 2008
Introduction
After a some research I composed following comprehensive overview:
5 Platonic Solids, regular faces: triangle, square or pentagon only
13 Archimedean Solids, semi-regular faces: triangle, square and pentagon
92 Johnson Solids, semi-regular faces: triangle, square, penta-, hexa-, octa- and decagons
80 Uniform Polyhedra, incl. platonic & archimedean solid and many concave forms not suitable for habitats
Waterman Polyhedra, parametrically created, which include also some platonic and archimedean solids
So a total of 110 convex and 62 concave polyhedra plus apprx. 500 convex parametrical created Waterman polyhedra are listed on the next pages of this document.
A hint on name convention:
1: mono
2: di
3: tri
4: tetra
5: penta
6: hexa
7: hepta
8: octa
9: ennéa
10: deca
11: hendeca
12: dodeca
13: triskaideca
14: tetrakaideca
20: ico
24: icotetra
30: triaconta
60: hexaconta
thereby polygons ('gon' from greek 'gonu' (knee or angle)) of n-sides:
1: monogon
2: digon
3: trigon, triangle
4: tetragon, quadrilateral
5: pentagon
6: hexagon
7: heptahon
8: octagon
9: enneagon
10: decagon
11: hendecagon
12: dodecagon
13: triskaidecagon
14: tetrakaidecagon, tetradecagon
15: pentakaidecagon, pentadecagon
16: hexakaidecagon, hexadecagon
17: heptakaidecagon
18: octakaidecagon
19: enneakaidecagon
20: icosagon
21: icosikaihenagon, icosihenagon
22: icosikaidigon
23: icosikaitrigon
24: icosikaitetragon
25: icosikaipentagon
26: icosikaihexagon
27: icosikaiheptagon
28: icosikaioctagon
29: icosikaienneagon
30: triacontagon
31: triacontakaihenagon
32: triacontakaidigon
33: triacontakaitrigon
34: triacontakaitetragon
35: triacontakaipentagon
36: triacontakaihexagon
37: triacontakaiheptagon
38: triacontakaioctagon
39: triacontakaienneagon
40: tetracontagon
41: tetracontakaihenagon
42: tetracontakaidigon
43: tetracontakaitrigon
44: tetracontakaitetragon
45: tetracontakaipentagon
46: tetracontakaihexagon
47: tetracontakaiheptagon
48: tetracontakaioctagon
49: tetracontakaienneagon
50: pentacontagon ...
60: hexacontagon ...
70: heptacontagon ...
80: octacontagon ...
90: enneacontagon ...
100: hectogon, hecatontagon
1000: chiliagon
10000: myriagon
Based on the study here of suitable solids or polyhedra I extract geodesic variants and from there I sort out those finally which are suitable for dome construction.
Note: The page structure might change depending how much info I will include in the future, e.g. multiple pages or separate pages for each form. Let's see.
They are called "platonic" as Plato (400 BC) described them in Timaeus, but those forms have been discovered in Scotland and are dated 2000-3200 BC and relate to the "neolithic" or "new stone age" people of that time (see also George Hart: Neolithic Carved Stone Polyhedra).
For more infos see Google: Carved Stone Balls.
The base information is compiled from Wikipedia and Mathworld and "Uniform solution for uniform polyhedra" by Zvi Har'El, merged all that information and additionally listed V, A, and rinner and router with a calculator.
I also plan to comment on each form, and suggest usage for a temporary building, especially if further triangulation like with the icosahedron to geodesic domes.
Symbols:
s = strut length
V = volume
A = surface area
rinner = inner radius or inradius
router = outer radius or circumradius
ravg = (rinner + router) / 2
Duals of a solid is when the solids' vertices become faces and vice-versa.
Edit the fields with yellow background and hit ENTER or TAB to (re)calculate the other values.
Note: I still need to cross-check all expressions (V, A, rinner and router) by other sources, so don't rely on it yet.
Tetrahedron
Tetrahedron
Uniform Polyhedron: U1
Platonic Solid
Platonic Element: Fire
Vertices: 4
Edges: 6
Faces: 4
Wythoff symbol: 3|2 3
Symmetry Group: {3, 3, 3}
Vertex Configuration: tetrahedral
Dual: tetrahedron
V: s3 / 12 * √2
A: s2 * √3
rinner: s / 12 * √6
router: s / 4 * √6
h: s / 3 * √6
Truncated Tetrahedron
Truncated Tetrahedron
Uniform Polyhedron: U2
Archimedean Solid: A13
Vertices: 12
Edges: 18
Faces: 8
Wythoff symbol: 2 3|3
Symmetry Group: tetrahedral
Vertex Configuration: {6, 6, 3}
Dual: triakis tetrahedron
V: s3 * 23/12 * √2
A: s2 * 7 * √3
rinner: s * 9 / 44 * √22
router: s / 4 * √22
Octahedron
Octahedron
Uniform Polyhedron: U5
Platonic Solid
Platonic Element: Air
Vertices: 6
Edges: 12
Faces: 8
Wythoff symbol: 4|2 3
Symmetry Group: octahedral
Vertex Configuration: {3, 3, 3, 3}
Dual: cube
V: s3 / 3 * √2
A: s2 * 8 / 4 * √3
rinner: s / 6 * √6
router: s / 2 * √2
Half of an octahedron is the classic pyramid.
Cube
Cube
Uniform Polyhedron: U6
aka Hexahedron
Platonic Solid
Platonic Element: Earth
Vertices: 8
Edges: 12
Faces: 6
Wythoff symbol: 3|2 4
Symmetry Group: octahedral
Vertex Configuration: {4, 4, 4}
Dual: octahedron
V: s3
A: s2 * 6
rinner: s / 2
router: s / 2 * √3
It's one of the main forms of western architecture, and one of the main zonohedra (aka parallelohedron), the ability to tile space without holes. There are many more possible, more complex with more faces.
In 1966 Norman Johnson published a paper
"Convex Solids with Regular Faces" (Canadian Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 18, 1966, pp. 169-200)
in which he classified and named 92 types of convex polyhedra which are composed by same side length additionally to the platonic and archimedean solids:
Most obvious association with pyramids comes from the egyptian pyramids in Giza and those of the mayans in south america.
It is also apparent those pyramids have been built with enormous effort and skills which is now honored by the durability of thousands of years.
The largest pyramid in Giza is the Khufu Pyramid, with following values:
George Hart, very interesting web-site, also from where I've got the wrl-files and converted into .pov to render the models
Uniform Polyhedra
For sake of completeness I list all "uniform polyhedra", which include the platonic and archimedean solids but additionally cover als the concave (non-convex) polyhedra which aren't suitable for habitat development.
Waterman polyhedra exist in mathematics since about 1990, a rather recent discovery.
The concept of Waterman polyhedra was developed by Steve Waterman and relate to "Cubic Close Packing" (CCP) of spheres,
also known as IVM (Isotropic Vector Matrix) by R. Buckminster Fuller.
Spheres are packed in a cubic manner:
x, y and z are integers,
sphere diameter is √2 thereby,
at 0,0,0 resides the first sphere,
and then those removed which have longer vector than √(2*n) from the center (0,0,0) and then a convex hull is calculated which gives a polyhedron:
Waterman W24 O1 (radius √48)
Waterman W24 O1
Some More Examples
Waterman W1 O1 (radius √2)
Waterman W5 O1 (radius √10)
Waterman W24 O1 (radius √48)
Waterman W200 O1 (radius √400)
Waterman W1000 O1 (radius √2000)
Waterman W1 O1
Waterman W5 O1
Waterman W24 O1
Waterman W200 O1
Waterman W1000 O1
Different Origins
Several origins are available as summarized by Mirek Majewski:
Origin
Origin Location
radius
Comment
1
0,0,0
√(2*n)
Atom center: traditional origin of Waterman polyhedra, symmetry properties of a cube.
2
1/2,1/2,0
√(2+4*n)/2
Touch point between 2 atoms: symmetry properties of flat rectangle whose top & bottom faces are the same
3
1/3,1/3,2/3
√(6*(n+1))/3
Void center between 3 atoms: symmetry properties of flat triangle whose top & bottom faces are different
3*
1/3,1/3,1/3
√(3+6*n)/3
Void center between 3 lattice voids: same symmetry of origin 3.
4
1/2,1/2,1/2
√(3+8*(n-1))/2
Tretrahedron void center between 4 atoms: symmetry properties of a tetrahedron.
5
0,0,1/2
√(1+4*n)/2
5 atoms: symmetry properties of a flat rectangle whose top & bottom are different.
6
1,0,0
√(1+2*(n-1))
Octahedral void center between 6 atoms: symmetry properties of a cube.
So the nice thing is, the creation of the polyhedra is done parametrically, in other words, systematically.
Needless to say, there are infinite of Waterman polyhedra, and interestingly there are doubles to be encountered, where:
the same amount of packed spheres result in the same polyhedra (14 + 16 n) m2 (whereas n & m integers >= 0)
the final polyhedra from packed spheres result in a previous discovered polyhedra when normalized (e.g. W3 O1 = W24 O1)
Those are not yet removed in the overview which follows.
Platonic & Archimedean Solids vs Waterman Polyhedra
The Waterman Polyhedra (WP) covers also some of the platonic and archimedean solids.
For sake of this comparison the WP are normalized, as W2 O1 has a different size/volume than W1 O6, but the same form of a Octahedron.
Platonic Solids
Waterman W1 O4
Waterman W2 O1
Waterman W2 O6
W1 O3* = W2 O3* = W1 O3 = W1 O4 = Tretrahedron
W2 O1 = W1 O6 = Octahedron
W2 O6 = Cube
Icosahedron and Dodecahedron have no WP representation.
Archimedean Solids
Waterman W1 O1
Waterman W10 O1
Waterman W2 O4
W1 O1 = W4 O1 = Cuboctahedron
W10 O1 = Truncated Octahedron
W4 O3 = W2 O4 = Truncated Tetrahedron
The following look like archimedean solids, but they are not:
Waterman W7 O1
Waterman W3 O1
W7 O1 != Truncated Cuboctahedron
W3 O1 = W12 O1 != Rhombicuboctahedron
as they are not having one length of edge, but two lengths of edges.
The others have no WP representation.
The Generalized Waterman Polyhedra (GWP) are currently still sorted by Steve Waterman, and I will include them later as they may cover more platonic and archimedean solids.
References
Waterman Polyhedron, very informative site by Steve Waterman, the inventor of the Waterman polyhedra
Paul Bourke has also a comprehensive website (I highly recommend to visit), his waterman.c I used to calculate those rendered Waterman polyhedra.
3D Junkyard, vast & interesting collection of links by David Eppstein