Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:282499
Settings: MakerWare .3mm/low with custom reduced-support slicing profile, on a Replicator 2.
Technical notes, tessellation flavor: The Rhombic Dodecahedron has a very interesting property: it fills space. What I mean by that is that you can stack them up to pack together perfectly, with no open spaces between. This is a pretty rare property: the only Platonic solid that fills space is the cube; the only Archimedean solid that fills space is the Truncated Octahedron; and the only Catalan solid that fills space is the Rhombic Dodecahedron.
For more information see "Simplicity is not Simple: Tesselations and Modular Architecture", the cover article for Math Horizons about Gregg Fleishman's space-filling housing units that I wrote with Eugenie Hunsicker of Loughborough University in 2002. Twelve years later I can now finally stack up a handful of Rhombic Dodecahedra and see for myself!
Very nice model. I've been looking for a nice 4D cube. This is a 3D outline of a 4D cube. To finish the 4D cube, the 3-way corners need to be connected through the center point of the model.
ReplyDeleteMore correctly, to make a near-side model, the center point should be connected to 4 of the 3-way corners.
Unfortunately, I'm not very good with math or modelling.