Stellation diagram

The stellation diagram for the regular dodecahedron with the central pentagon highlighted. This diagram represents the dodecahedron face itself.

In geometry, a stellation diagram or stellation pattern is a two-dimensional diagram in the plane of some face of a polyhedron, showing lines where other face planes intersect with this one. The lines cause 2D space to be divided up into regions. Regions not intersected by any further lines are called elementary regions. Usually infinite regions are excluded from the diagram, along with any infinite portions of the lines. Each elementary region represents a top face of one cell, and a bottom face of another.

A collection of these diagrams, one for each face type, can be used to represent any stellation of the polyhedron, by shading the regions which should appear in that stellation.

A stellation diagram exists for every face of a given polyhedron. In face transitive polyhedra, symmetry can be used to require all faces have the same diagram shading. Semiregular polyhedra like the Archimedean solids will have different stellation diagrams for different kinds of faces.

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References

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