Make you own Colouring Patterns

Instructions for how to make your own patterns from polyhedra are listed here for RISCOS users. You can use either !PolySymm which comes with several hundred definitions of named polyhedra or !Stellate which has over 100 definitions and also allows you to invent your own new ones, but is more complicated. Both applications have extensive help and documentation, which you may find helpful if these instructions do not work for you.

  1. Load Polysymm on to the iconbar from within the directory PolySymm
  2. Click with the 'Menu' mouse button over this icon to see a column with info at the top, and then 3 items with a tick beside them, use the 'Adjust' button to delete the ones you do not want this time, possibly just 'net'.
  3. Click with the 'Select' mouse button on the icon which makes a window showing a list of polyhedra
  4. Click in that window on the line reading 'truncated icosahedron' which shows a 'wire' diagram, black lines in front, green lines behind, and a tools pane with many icons on the left. Use the !Help to explore what these icons do.
  5. To change the colour of the wires, click 'Menu' over the icon on the iconbar and choose 'colours' to see a window where you can select other colours, I usually choose both front and back wire the same colour. Don't forget to click 'OK' after selecting your colour.
  6. To save the diagram to a Drawfile check 'Menu' over the diagram, choose 'save' from that menu and drag the 'Draw' icon to !Draw on the iconbar or save the Drawfile to your chosen directory. By default the line width is 'thin'; depending on your printer you may want to make it thicker before printing.
  7. To see your diagram from a particular direction, click 'Menu' in the diagram window and choose the word 'rot symm', which makes another window listing all the rotational symmetries which this polyhedron has. Choose one of them; this makes a cyan line showing that direction. To look along that line press the 'Home' key on your keyboard to replace the line by a small polygon in the centre, showing the symmetry. Remove it by clicking 'adjust' over the button selecting the symmetry.


Page last updated 23 Feb 2016