polyhedra(6)

📦
version 6.15 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable

💎 polyhedra(6) — polyhedra, in the XScreenSaver manual ✨

okay so first things first, bestie: this is a page from the XScreenSaver manual, it's filed under section 6 (games/screensavers, iykyk), and it's about a little program literally called polyhedra. she draws shapes. like, a lot of shapes. buckle up 🎀

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

polyhedra [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
[--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--speed float]
[--duration seconds] [--no-wander] [--spin XYZ] [--wireframe] [--no-
titles] [--which name] [--wireframe] [--fps]

no cap, that's the whole invocation. yes --wireframe is in there twice. she contains multitudes 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so this program renders 160 different 3D solids and puts some info on screen about each one. every few seconds it picks a whole new solid. main character energy, honestly.

there are 75 uniform polyhedra, plus an inifinite number of prisms and antiprisms (that's the manpage's spelling, don't come for me 😭):

  • Convex Uniform Polyhedra:
    • Platonic solids (5)
    • Archimedean solids (13)
    • Convex prisms and antiprisms (2 infinite families)
  • Nonconvex Uniform Polyhedra:
    • Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra (4)
    • Nonconvex uniform polyhedra (53)
    • Nonconvex prisms, antiprisms, and crossed antiprisms (3 infinite families)

so representative samples of the prism sets bring the total to 80 solids. and then including the dual of each brings the total up to 160. (and because you're gonna ask: to create the "dual" of a polyhedron, faces are replaced with vertices, and vertices with faces. that's the whole trick. iconic. ✨)

💖 OPTIONS 💖

  • --visual visual — specify which visual to use. legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual. go off, pick your fave.
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, she's the baseline 🫶
  • --root — draw on the root window.
  • --window-id number — draw on the specified window. specific. precise. we love her.
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. default: 30000 (that's 0.03 seconds, for the record.).
  • --speed number — larger numbers mean run faster. default: 1.0.
  • --duration seconds — how long before switching to a new polyhedron. default 12 seconds.
  • --wander | --no-wander — whether the objects should wander around the screen.
  • --spin [XYZ] | --no-spin — which axes, if any, to spin around on.
  • --titles | --no-titles — whether to display text describing each object.
  • --which object-name — display only one particular object, identified by number, name, or Whthoff symbol.
  • --wireframe | --no-wireframe — render in wireframe instead of solid.
  • --fps — display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count.

⌨️ KEY BINDINGS ⌨️

when running in a window, you can rotate the object with the mouse 🖱️ (yes, with your actual hand, very tactile of you).

also, the following keystrokes are defined:

  • SPC or TAB — select a new polyhedron at random.
  • + or > — select the next-higher-numbered polyhedron.
  • - or < — select the next-lower-numbered polyhedron.
  • ESC or ^C — quit.

🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

  • DISPLAY — to get the default host and display number. classic. we stan.
  • XENVIRONMENT — to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
  • XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root.

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

X(1), xscreensaver(1)

like, obviously. 💅

Copyright © 1991-2002 Dr. Zvi Har'El.

Copyright © 2004 Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

fr fr, "as is", no warranty, she said what she said 💀

🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

based on the program kaleido ("Kaleidoscopic construction of uniform polyhedra"), by Dr. Zvi Har'El <rl@math.technion.ac.il>

https://web.archive.org/web/20040807023850/https%3A//www.math.technion.ac.il/kaleido/

adapted for OpenGL and XScreenSaver by Jamie Zawinski, 2004.

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this version is X Version 11, 6.15 (30-Mar-2026) — go forth and rotate some solids, you're gonna slay ✨💜

📦 where this page comes from