Part III: Polyhedra b: Unfolding Joseph O’Rourke Smith College
Outline: Edge-Unfolding Polyhedra History (Dürer) ; Open Problem; Applications Evidence For Evidence Against
Unfolding Polyhedra Cut along the surface of a polyhedron Unfold into a simple planar polygon without overlap
Edge Unfoldings Two types of unfoldings: Edge unfoldings: Cut only along edges General unfoldings: Cut through faces too
Commercial Software Lundström Design, http://www.algonet.se/~ludesign/index.html
Albrecht Dürer, 1425
Melancholia I
Albrecht Dürer, 1425 Snub Cube
Open: Edge-Unfolding Convex Polyhedra Does every convex polyhedron have an edge-unfolding to a simple, nonoverlapping polygon? [Shephard, 1975]
Open Problem Can every simple polygon be folded (via perimeter self-gluing) to a simple, closed polyhedron? How about via perimeter-halving?
Example
Symposium on Computational Geometry Cover Image
Cut Edges form Spanning Tree Lemma: The cut edges of an edge unfolding of a convex polyhedron to a simple polygon form a spanning tree of the 1-skeleton of the polyhedron. spanning: to flatten every vertex forest: cycle would isolate a surface piece tree: connected by boundary of polygon
Unfolding the Platonic Solids Some nets: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/dougz/polyhedra/
Unfolding the Archimedean Solids
Archimedian Solids
Nets for Archimedian Solids
Unfolding the Globe: Fuller’s map http://www. grunch
Successful Software Nishizeki Hypergami Javaview Unfold ... http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg/projects/hypergami/ http://www.fucg.org/PartIII/JavaView/unfold/Archimedean.html
Prismoids Convex top A and bottom B, equiangular. Edges parallel; lateral faces quadrilaterals.
Overlapping Unfolding
Volcano Unfolding
Unfolding “Domes”
Cube with one corner truncated
“Sliver” Tetrahedron
Percent Random Unfoldings that Overlap [O’Rourke, Schevon 1987]
Sclickenrieder1: steepest-edge-unfold “Nets of Polyhedra” TU Berlin, 1997
Sclickenrieder2: flat-spanning-tree-unfold
Sclickenrieder3: rightmost-ascending-edge-unfold
Sclickenrieder4: normal-order-unfold
Open: Edge-Unfolding Convex Polyhedra (revisited) Does every convex polyhedron have an edge-unfolding to a net (a simple, nonoverlapping polygon)?
Open: Fewest Nets For a convex polyhedron of n vertices and F faces, what is the fewest number of nets (simple, nonoverlapping polygons) into which it may be cut along edges? ≤ F ≤ (2/3)F [for large F] ≤ (1/2)F [for large F] ≤ F < ½?; o(F)?