Images of Polyhedra

polyhedra wooden
A polyhedron is a solid with flat faces.

Will Tait, a classically trained artist, constructed a series of dodecahedrons from wood panels:

will tait dodecahedra

Here are some illustrations made back in the year 1509 by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) for Luca Pacioli's book called the "The Divine Proportion":

da vinci dodecahedron solid
Here Leonardo has illustrated a Dodecahedron
("DVODECEDRON" means Dodecahedron.)
da vinci dodecahedron
And here Leonardo has illustrated the same shape but with "hollow" sides.
"Vacuus" means hollow.

And here is a modern Dodecahedron just like Leonarda drew, but made of steel:
dodecahedron tubular steel
(You are supposed to imagine the faces are there)

Just like in the illustration below, which are the five Platonic Solids as drawn by a German artist called Augustin Herschvogel (1503-1553):

hirschvogel platonic solids

 

And here are the Platonic Solids as dice:

black platonic solid dice

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) drew these illustrations of polyhedra for his 1619 book "Harmonice Mundi". He has even shown how they could be made:

kepler polyhedra

 

Animated Polyhedron Models

Also explore 100s of
Animated Polyhedron Models.

And you can try making some of those yourself at Platonic Solids Models.