Generator

The equation on an edge, at both of its ends

A generator in the tessellations library, called 28 times across 5 essays. Below: what it draws at its defaults and at the arguments the essays give it, what it checked while drawing, and everywhere it is used.

pleat-ratio is one function. Everything below came out of it during this build, at arguments taken from the essays rather than invented for this page — so a figure here is the same figure a reader meets in an essay, and when the generator changes, this page changes with it.

At its defaults

The equation on an edge, at both of its endsEach edge of a tiling carries one equation relating the twist sizes at its two ends. The first pair of columns is the tiling as it is drawn; the second is the same tiling with every vertex moved a little. A regular polygon has one interior angle, so both ends of an edge read the same numbers and every ratio is one.the equation on an edge, at both of its endsas drawnevery vertex moved 12 per centratio − 1round a loopratio − 1round a loopthe square grid000.200.90the triangular grid000.170.75the honeycomb000.351.73the rhombille tiling2.0002.992.14the elongated triangular tiling000.171.27the rhombille's tiles are not regular, its ratios are three and a third, and they still multiply to one

view: "affine"

Which irregular tilings close their loopsFive tilings as drawn and under a shear, a stretch and a general linear map, with whether the pleat equations close round every loop. The square grid, the triangular grid and the honeycomb close under every map, because each edge's equation is exactly one; the rhombille closes only as drawn.do the pleat equations close round every loop, as drawn and under three linear mapstrivially means every edge's equation is one at both ends; otherwise the largest disagreement round a loopas drawnshearedstretchedgeneralthe square gridcloses, triviallycloses, triviallycloses, triviallycloses, triviallythe triangular gridcloses, triviallycloses, triviallycloses, triviallycloses, triviallythe honeycombcloses, triviallycloses, triviallycloses, triviallycloses, triviallythe rhombille tilingclosesoff by 1.76off by 2.18off by 2.96the elongated triangular tilingcloses, triviallyoff by 3.14closes, triviallyoff by 4.77the maps: a shear of 0.3, a stretch of 1.5 along one axis, and the matrix [1.3, 0.4; −0.2, 0.9]

view: "loop", kind: "hexagonal", jitter: 0, affine: [1.3, 0.4, -0.2, 0.9]

The ratios round a loop of a sheared tilingOne closed path through the tiling, with the ratio each of its edges demands between the twist sizes at its two ends. The rest of the patch is behind it. What matters is not any single ratio but their product round the loop: at one, the propagation is consistent; at anything else, two paths to the same vertex ask for two different patterns.the ratio each edge demands between the twists at its endsunder the linear map [1.3, 0.4, -0.2, 0.9]1.001.001.001.001.001.00round this loop the ratios multiply to 1.000000 — the propagation comes back to the number it set out with

view: "loop", kind: "rhombille", jitter: 0, affine: [1, 0.3, 0, 1]

The ratios round a loop of a sheared tilingOne closed path through the tiling, with the ratio each of its edges demands between the twist sizes at its two ends. The rest of the patch is behind it. What matters is not any single ratio but their product round the loop: at one, the propagation is consistent; at anything else, two paths to the same vertex ask for two different patterns.the ratio each edge demands between the twists at its endsunder the linear map [1, 0.3, 0, 1]3.890.433.890.43round this loop the ratios multiply to 2.7559, so two paths to the same vertex demand two different twists

What it checked while it drew

Collected by running this generator with a listener on the assertions, not written here. The count is how many separate times this build put that claim to the test.

Where it is called

Changing this generator changes every figure on this list, which is what makes the list worth publishing rather than keeping in a check script.

Closing the loops is not folding

The twist construction propagates one equation along every edge of a tiling, and it can only work where the equations agree round every loop. Asked which irregular tilings pass, a linear map gives a clean answer: the square grid, the triangular grid and the honeycomb pass under every shear and stretch tried, because each edge has a half-turn symmetry that makes its equation exactly one at both ends, and a half-turn survives any linear map. The rhombille passes only as drawn. But passing is not folding. On every one of those images — including the ones whose loops close exactly — the construction produces a pattern that fails the angle condition at every turn tried. The loops were a necessary condition all along, and the construction needs something the tilings' images do not give it.

Every twist writes an equilibrium

Divide each side of a twist polygon by the length of the edge it faces. The polygon closing says those numbers, weighted onto the edges, balance at the vertex; the pleat matching says the two ends of an edge agree on the number. Together they are a positive equilibrium stress — the thing a tiling has when it is the plan of a spider web — and the construction has been writing one at every vertex without being asked for it.

One number where the corners wanted four

The twist construction gives a vertex a single side distance, and every account of these patterns does the same — it is what rotate-and-shrink means. The conditions never asked for it. Written out, the corner condition is one linear equation per pleat crease in the distances taken one per edge, so a degree-four vertex carries four unknowns against two independent equations. Given them back, the twelve sheared and stretched tilings that refused to fold all fold.

The propagation that never had to work

The twist construction carries one equation per edge of its tiling and propagates the twist sizes outward from a seed. On every tiling anybody has drawn a twist on, every one of those equations is satisfied trivially — both ends of an edge read the same two numbers, because a regular polygon has one interior angle. The construction has been running and doing nothing, and the one tiling where it did something is the one whose tiles are not regular.

The sheet draws in crooked

Every twist tessellation measured here has collapsed by a similarity: the folded sheet is the flat one scaled and turned, the same way in every direction. The patterns that exist on sheared and stretched tilings do not. Ten of the fifteen images fold by a map with two different principal factors, up to five and a third to one — and the prediction that said which ten, made from the weights the pattern writes on its edges, is wrong in both directions.

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