Octahedral Symmetry - Achiral Octahedral Symmetry

  • Oh, *432, +, or m3m of order 48 - achiral octahedral symmetry or full octahedral symmetry. This group has the same rotation axes as O, but with mirror planes, comprising both the mirror planes of Td and Th. This group is isomorphic to S4 × C2, and is the full symmetry group of the cube and octahedron. It is the hyperoctahedral group for n = 3. See also the isometries of the cube.


With the 4-fold axes as coordinate axes, a fundamental domain of Oh is given by 0 ≤ xyz. An object with this symmetry is characterized by the part of the object in the fundamental domain, for example the cube is given by z = 1, and the octahedron by x + y + z = 1 (or the corresponding inequalities, to get the solid instead of the surface). ax + by + cz = 1 gives a polyhedron with 48 faces, e.g. the disdyakis dodecahedron.

Faces are 8-by-8 combined to larger faces for a = b = 0 (cube) and 6-by-6 for a = b = c (octahedron).

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