These are crystal models that I have made with Flux Studio. I am an Earth Scientist so this is in keeping with my background. Mineralogy or rather crystallography was my first in-depth exposure to 3D visualization. I remain fascinated by it.
After I studied crystallography, M.C. Escher's art was a little less overwhelming for me. His preoccupation with symmetry (planes and axes of rotation, translation, mirrors, etc...) now had a physical model that made his art easier to comprehend.
The text I studied was Dana's Manual of Mineralogy (18th edition, the 21st edition is now published). Here is a glimpse at some of the 2D methods used in the book to represent these 3D forms. As you will see, a 3D model does them better justice.
The 32 Crystal Classes |
|
Crystal System |
Crystal Class |
| Triclinic | Pedial |
| Pinacoidal | |
| Monoclinic | Sphenoidal |
| Domatic | |
| Prismatic | |
| Orthorhombic | Rhombic_disphenoid |
| Rhombic-pyramidal | |
| Rhombic-dipyramidal | |
| Tetragonal | Tetragonal-Pyramidal |
| Tetragonal-disphenoidal | |
| Tetragonal-dipyramidal | |
| Tetragonal-trapezohedral | |
| Ditetragonal-pyramidal | |
| Tetragonal-scalenohedral | |
| Ditetragonal_dipyramidal | |
| Hexagonal | Trigonal-pyramidal |
| Rhombohedral | |
| Trigonal-trapezohedral | |
| Ditrigonal-pyramidal | |
| Hexagonal-scalenohedral | |
| Hexagonal-pyramidal | |
| Trigonal-dipyramidal | |
| Hexagonal_dipyramid | |
| Hexagonal-trapezohedral | |
| Dihexagonal-pyramidal | |
| Ditrigonal-dipyramidal | |
| Dihexagonal-dipyramidal | |
| Isometric | tetrahedron1 |
| Diploidal | |
| Gyroidal | |
| tetrahexahedron | |
| Hexoctahedron | |
This table was derived from...
http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol211/32crstalclass.htm
Much learning and inspiration came from these pages too... http://members.aol.com/jmichaelh/part1.html
Miscellaneous Evens and Middles
tritetraoctahexahedron_smooshed