Stellation

Walkthrough History Brückner 1900
drag to turn · shift-click adds a cell · ctrl-click removes one
stellation diagram · drag to pan · shift-click toggles the cell beneath · ctrl-click the one on top · double-click resets
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Make planes

One plane per line — nx ny nz d, then optionally a symmetry group to multiply that plane by (Ih, O, T…). Lines starting with # are comments. The arrangement is built from the union; the symmetry dropdowns then group its cells as usual.

Stellation, in one minute

Take a pentagon and extend its five sides. They cross again, and the crossings outline a five-pointed star. That is a stellation: the same lines, followed further.

In three dimensions you extend a polyhedron's face planes instead. The planes slice space into small bounded regions — cells — arranged in shells, or layers, around the core. Any choice of cells that respects the solid's symmetry is a stellation of it. The icosahedron famously has 59.

How to use this

Where this comes from

A JavaScript port of the Stellation applet written by Vladimir Bulatov in 1998–2001. The geometry is a direct port of his algorithm, checked against the original Java: the same facet counts, the same cell structure, the same volumes to six decimal places.

Build · what changed →