[Edu-sig] HexaPents Again (bonus feature)

[kirby urner]

Framework:  HexaPents in VPython (back to using Python 2.4)

Re:  http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/hexapent.html  (recently modified).

So Adrian (author of open source Packinon) tells me you need to twist
it that way to make the hexagons lie flat.

The Rick Bono way (dome.exe -sb), of punching out faces in a Class I
icosasphere (Fig 2), gives hexagonal and pentagonal regions, but not
with a flat horizon, or so goes the tale.

I've taken the OFF file generated by Packinon, intermediate to the
POV-Ray file used for the rendering (Fig 1), and fed it through my
neighbor finder (brute force) to come up with a globalmatrix data
structure, per my posts earlier this month.

This data structure is used in tandem with a VPython rendering of the
hexapent itself (in terms of edges -- I keep a handle on all of them
to facilitate easy resizing and recoloring).

The demo starts somewhere, then randomly flits about the globe,
turning the current hexagon (or pentagon) red, and leaving those
visited green (Fig 3).

White is the default (untouched) color.

You can study a random walk and see how many cycles, on average, you
might need to turn the whole sphere green -- other games (I'm sure
you'll think of some, if you get into it).

Kirby