DURER'S SOLIDS

Melencolia I - Albrecht DürerFor more information see:
- Melencolia I
- Truncated Triangular Trapezohedron: Dürer's Solid
- Mathworld: Dürer's Solid

As the above articles suggest, there is some disagreement around the exact form that Dürer's Solid takes, with a general agreement that the acute angle of the rhomboid face is between 72° and 82°.

For me, however, the solid so defined lacks some elegance. My version of Dürer's Solid uses an angle of 60°, and results in a shape made of equilateral triangles. The contrast between the two solids is most easily seen when the 'flat pack' versions are compared.

Links to 3D stuff:
- I used OpenSCAD to create my models.
- SCAD file: Dürer's Solid (60°).
- Dürer's Solid (60°) on thingiverse.com.
- SCAD file: Dürer's Solid (72°).
- Dürer's Solid (72°) on thingiverse.com.

I acknowledge that the 60° version does not match the object in 'Melencolia I' very well, but I think it's a 'purer' object. I wonder what Dürer would think of it?

Dürer's Solid (60°)
Left: OpenSCAD render. Right: 3D printed.
Dürer's Solid (72°)
Left: OpenSCAD render. Right: 3D printed.
Dürer's Solid 'flat pack'
Left: traditional Dürer's solid. Right: Dürer's solid (60°).

Creative Commons License

All Durer's Solids assets by Chris Molloy are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.