Bitruncation


In geometry, a bitruncation is an operation on regular polytopes. It represents a truncation beyond rectification. The original edges are lost completely and the original faces remain as smaller copies of themselves.
Bitruncated regular polytopes can be represented by an extended Schläfli symbol notation t1,2 or 2t.

In regular polyhedra and tilings

For regular polyhedra, a bitruncated form is the truncated dual. For example, a bitruncated cube is a truncated octahedron.

In regular 4-polytopes and honeycombs

For a regular 4-polytope, a bitruncated form is a dual-symmetric operator. A bitruncated 4-polytope is the same as the bitruncated dual, and will have double the symmetry if the original 4-polytope is self-dual.
A regular polytope will have its cells bitruncated into truncated cells, and the vertices are replaced by truncated cells.

Self-dual {p,q,p} 4-polytope/honeycombs

An interesting result of this operation is that self-dual 4-polytope remain cell-transitive after bitruncation. There are 5 such forms corresponding to the five truncated regular polyhedra: t. Two are honeycombs on the 3-sphere, one a honeycomb in Euclidean 3-space, and two are honeycombs in hyperbolic 3-space.
Space4-polytope or honeycombSchläfli symbol
Coxeter-Dynkin diagram
Cell typeCell
image
Vertex figure
Bitruncated 5-cell
t1,2
truncated tetrahedron
Bitruncated 24-cell
t1,2
truncated cube
Bitruncated cubic honeycomb
t1,2
truncated octahedron
Bitruncated icosahedral honeycomb
t1,2
truncated dodecahedron
Bitruncated order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb
t1,2
truncated icosahedron