Great Stella
a computer application which let you create and view polyhedra on the screen
- Downloads:14
- Last update:Mar 18, 2008
- Version:4.1.1
- License:Shareware
- Publisher:Robert Webb
- System Requirements
Windows All
Great Stella
Great Stella is a computer program which let you create and view polyhedra on the screen, then print out the nets. Great Stella is a computer application which let you create and view polyhedra on the screen, then print out the nets required to build your own models out of paper.
Great Stella is the ultimate tool for creating, visualising, and printing nets for polyhedra.
The programs are fun and easy to use. Some of the jargon in the descriptions below may be a bit baffling at first, but you don't need to know anything about maths or geometry to be able to use these programs and create amazing polyhedra.
They should suit everyone from the amateur enthusiast to the seasoned polyhedral expert!
Here are some key features of "Great Stella":
Includes all features from Small Stella (see above).
Built-in models (in addition to those from Small Stella):
All uniform polyhedra (see photos)
Any regular-faced prisms and antiprisms (not just the convex ones. See photos)
Any regular-faced pyramid, cupola, cuploid or cupolaic-blend (see example photo)
A library of over 400 other models is also included, created using the tools available in Great Stella. This contains most of Br ckner's 1906 polyhedra, and has a category for compounds (see example photos), including:
- 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 20 and 40 tetrahedra.
- 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 20 cubes/octahedra.
- 2, 5 and 8 dodecahedra/icosahedra.
- 2 and 5 small stellated dodecahedra/great dodecahedra/great stellated dodecahedra/great icosahedra.
- 3, 4 and 5 cuboctahedra.
- 2 and 5 icosidodecahedra.
- 4, 5 and 20 tetrahemihexahedra.
- and many many more.
Duals of any model are available.
Nets for dual-morphed models can be printed.
Compounds of polyhedra with their duals (including nets).
Stellations (see example photos):
Any model may be stellated, leading to trillions of new polyhedra. For example, the 59 icosahedra, the 227 triacontahedra, and stellations from Magnus Wenninger's Polyhedron Models book.
Stellation is very fast, and generally takes less than a second for even the most complex uniform polyhedron.
By default, stellation cells are automatically chosen to recreate the original uniform polyhedron. This makes nets for uniform polyhedra easy to obtain, and would be difficult and time-consuming to do by hand.
Support for certain stellation criteria (eg fully supported or Miller's rules), so that you can easily iterate over all the valid stellations of some polyhedron, without having to manually select the appropriate cells for each model in the set. When using "Miller's rules", just hit the Up Arrow 59 times to see all the 59 icosahedra.
Stellation diagrams and cell diagrams may be viewed and printed.
Stellation from an arbitrary set of planes.
Facetings: Any model may be faceted to create new polyhedra (this is the dual process of stellation, see example photos).
Polyhedra can be augmented/excavated/drilled using any other polyhedron. Use this to glue lots of models together, create more Stewart toroids, or explore many other creative avenues.
The convex hull of any model can be created.
A zonohedron can be created based on any model.
A geodesic sphere can be created based on most models.
The symmetry group of any model is automatically established, and symmetries may be displayed graphically.
The user may choose from a list of all possible sub-symmetry groups for any model. This may change the colouring of a model, and affects stellation, faceting, and augmentation/excavation/drilling.
Print out nets for building any of the above polyhedra (except infinite dual polyhedra). You just tell it how big the final model should be.
Polyhedra may be exported to DXF, POV-Ray (a free ray-tracer), VRML, Wavefront OBJ, or OFF format.
Extra polygons may be created and printed for use as extra internal support inside a model.
Import any closed 3D model in OFF format.
Any alternative names are given for all uniform/dual polyhedra, as well as their reference and page numbers in Wenninger's Polyhedron Models and Dual Models, making this the ultimate reference for the uniform/dual polyhedra
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