Snub Dodecahedron - Geometric Relations

Geometric Relations

The snub dodecahedron can be generated by taking the twelve pentagonal faces of the dodecahedron and pulling them outward so they no longer touch. At a proper distance this can create the rhombicosidodecahedron by filling in square faces between the divided edges and triangle faces between the divided vertices. But for the snub form, only add the triangle faces and leave the square gaps empty. Then apply an equal rotation to the centers of the pentagons and triangles, continuing the rotation until the gaps can be filled by two equilateral triangles.

The snub dodecahedron can also be derived from the truncated icosidodecahedron by the process of alternation. Sixty of the vertices of the truncated icosidodecahedron form a polyhedron topologically equivalent to one snub dodecahedron; the remaining sixty form its mirror-image. The resulting polyhedron is vertex-transitive but not uniform, because its edges are of unequal lengths; some deformation is required to transform it into a uniform polyhedron.

Archimedes, an ancient Greek who showed major interest in polyhedral shapes, wrote a treatise on thirteen semi-regular solids. The snub dodecahedron is one of them.