Chamfer (geometry)

Unchamfered, slightly chamfered, and chamfered cube
Historical crystal models of slightly chamfered Platonic solids
Transformation of a cube (left) and a regular dodecahedron (right) into their chamfered forms, with equilateral (but not equiangular) hexagons

In geometry, a chamfer or edge-truncation is a topological operator that modifies one polyhedron into another. It separates the faces by reducing them, and adds a new face between each two adjacent faces (moving the vertices inward). Oppositely, similar to expansion, it moves the faces apart outward, and adds a new face between each two adjacent faces; but contrary to expansion, it maintains the original vertices.

For a polyhedron, this operation adds a new hexagonal face in place of each original edge.

In Conway polyhedron notation, chamfering is represented by the letter "c". A polyhedron with e edges will have a chamfered form containing 2e new vertices, 3e new edges, and e new hexagonal faces.

Platonic solids

Left to right: chamfered tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron

Chamfers of five Platonic solids are described in detail below.

Historical drawings of truncated tetrahedron and slightly chamfered tetrahedron.
pentakis icosidodecahedron and triakis icosidodecahedron

Regular tilings

Chamfered regular and quasiregular tilings

Square tiling, Q
{4,4}

Triangular tiling, Δ
{3,6}

Hexagonal tiling, H
{6,3}

Rhombille, daH
dr{6,3}
cQ cΔ cH cdaH

Relation to Goldberg polyhedra

The chamfer operation applied in series creates progressively larger polyhedra with new faces, hexagonal, replacing the edges of the current one. The chamfer operator transforms GP(m,n) to GP(2m,2n).

A regular polyhedron, GP(1,0), creates a Goldberg polyhedra sequence: GP(1,0), GP(2,0), GP(4,0), GP(8,0), GP(16,0)...

GP(1,0) GP(2,0) GP(4,0) GP(8,0) GP(16,0) ...
GPIV
{4+,3}

C

cC

ccC

cccC

ccccC
...
GPV
{5+,3}

D

cD

ccD

cccD

ccccD
...
GPVI
{6+,3}

H

cH

ccH

cccH

ccccH
...

The truncated octahedron or truncated icosahedron, GP(1,1), creates a Goldberg sequence: GP(1,1), GP(2,2), GP(4,4), GP(8,8)...

GP(1,1) GP(2,2) GP(4,4) ...
GPIV
{4+,3}

tO

ctO

cctO
...
GPV
{5+,3}

tI

ctI

cctI
...
GPVI
{6+,3}

tΔ

ctΔ

cctΔ
...

A truncated tetrakis hexahedron or pentakis dodecahedron, GP(3,0), creates a Goldberg sequence: GP(3,0), GP(6,0), GP(12,0)...

GP(3,0) GP(6,0) GP(12,0) ...
GPIV
{4+,3}

tkC

ctkC

cctkC
...
GPV
{5+,3}

tkD

ctkD

cctkD
...
GPVI
{6+,3}

tkH

ctkH

cctkH
...

See also

References

  1. ↑ Spencer 1911, p. 575, or p. 597 on Wikisource, Crystallography, 1. Cubic System, Tetrahedral Class, Figs. 30 & 31.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Deza, Deza & Grishukhin 1998, 3.4.3. Edge truncations.
  3. ↑ Gelişgen & Yavuz 2019b, Chamfered Cube Metric and Some Properties.
  4. ↑ "TwistyPuzzles.com > Museum > Show Museum Item". twistypuzzles.com. Retrieved 2025-02-09.
  5. ↑ Gelişgen & Yavuz 2019b, Chamfered Octahedron Metric and Some Properties.
  6. ↑ Gelişgen & Yavuz 2019a.

Sources