Stellations explained

Stellating the Dodecahedron

Dodecahedron projection Stand the dodecahedron on one face and imagine projecting the other faces down on to the plane of that face. Each will meet it in a line. The lines will join at the points such as A, B, C, D.

The diagram in the plane is called the stellation diagram.

If you project the faces from the plane they meet at E, forming a pentagonal pyramid standing on the face. In this is a way you can form a new polyhedron from the original one.

Alternatively you can select areas of the stellation diagram to form the faces of a new polyhedron.

The diagrams below show which areas to select to make the polyhedra shown in the row beneath them.


Dod. diag. 1 Dod. diag. 2 Dod. diag. 3
Original dodecahedron First stellation Second stellation
Dodecahedron Dod. stell 1 Dod. stell 2

Notice how the shaded areas in the upper row (the stellation diagrams) correspond to the faces of the new 3D solids shown blue in the models below.
The dodecahedron is smaller than its stellations.
There is a third stellation which is much bigger than the others and is not shown here.

Click here to go to the polyhedron examples page
Click here to go to Fortran Friends products


Page last updated 6 June 2001
Click here to return to Fortran Friends Top page