Stella (software)

Stella, a computer program available in three versions (Great Stella, Small Stella and Stella4D) was created by Robert Webb of Australia. The programs contain a large library of polyhedra which can be manipulated and altered in various ways.

Polyhedra in Great Stella's library include the Platonic Solids, the Archimedean solids, the Kepler-Poinsot solids, the Johnson solids, some Johnson Solid near-misses, numerous compounds including the uniform polyhedra, and other polyhedra too numerous to list here. Operations which can be performed on these polyhedra include stellation, faceting, augmentation, dualization (also called "reciprocation"), creating convex hulls, and others.

All versions of the program enable users to print nets for polyhedra. These nets may then be assembled into actual three-dimensional polyhedral models of great beauty and complexity.

In 2007, a Stella4D version was added, allowing the generation and display of four dimensional polytopes (polychora), including a library of all convex uniform polychora, and all currently known nonconvex star polychora, as well as the uniform duals. They can be selected from a library or generated from user created polyhedral vertex figure files.

Release history

* v1.0 - 20th August 2001 - First release of Stella
* v2.0 - 12th September 2002
* v3.0 - 12th June 2005
** v3.5 - 16th March 2006
*** v3.5.1 - 10th May 2006
* v4.0 - 13th March 2007 - newest version (Including new "Stella4D")
** v4.1 - 24th March 2007
** v4.2 - 27th June 2007
** v4.3 - 2nd November 2007
** v4.4 - 11th January 2008

References

*PC Plus magazine included a review of Great Stella by Mike Bedford in issue 271, August 2008, p46-47. "This is quite a sophisticated program for those who want to go beyond the basics" - Mike Bedford
*Australia's Today Show presented Stella as part of their I.T. segment on 4 February 2003 ( [http://www.software3d.com/TV.php screenshots] )

External links

* [http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php Stella homepage]
* [http://www.software3d.com/PolyNav/PolyNavigator.php Stella: Polyhedron Navigator] - Paper published in "Symmetry: Culture and Science", Volume 11, Numbers 1-4, 231-268, 2000 [http://www.symmetry.hu/contents/2000-1-4.html contents] (Note: journal was back-dated. Paper actually written 2003)
* [http://www.software3d.com/StellaModels/StellaModels.php Stella Models] - Paper published in "Symmetry: Culture and Science", Volume 13, Numbers 3-4, 391-399, 2002 [http://www.symmetry.hu/contents/2002-3-4.pdf contents] (Note: journal was back-dated. Paper actually written 2004)