Find remaining vertices of cuboctahedron.

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on finding the remaining vertices of a regular cuboctahedron with unit edges, given three vertices: (1,0,0), (1/2, sqrt(3)/2, 0), and (1/2, sqrt(3)/6, sqrt(6)/3). The user utilized quaternion rotation matrices to generate new vertices based on the known rotation symmetries of the cuboctahedron. The solution was confirmed to be straightforward, demonstrating the effectiveness of quaternion mathematics in geometric transformations.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of cuboctahedron geometry and its symmetries
  • Familiarity with quaternion mathematics and rotation matrices
  • Knowledge of spherical and Cartesian coordinate systems
  • Experience with Maple software for geometric computations
NEXT STEPS
  • Research quaternion rotation matrices and their applications in 3D geometry
  • Explore Maple's functions for defining and manipulating Archimedean solids
  • Study the properties and symmetries of the cuboctahedron in detail
  • Learn about converting between spherical and Cartesian coordinates effectively
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Mathematicians, geometry enthusiasts, and software developers working with 3D modeling or geometric computations will benefit from this discussion.

Eric Belcastro
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*note - this is not a homework problem.

I have the locations of three vertices of a regular cuboctahedron with edges of unit length (all vertices are length 1 from the center).

They are (1,0,0), (1/2, sqrt(3)/2, 0), (1/2, sqrt(3)/6, sqrt(2)/2)
or in spherical coordinates (1, 0, pi/2), (1, pi/3, pi/2), (1, pi/6, arctan(sqrt(2)/2)) respectively.

Now I am trying to find the remaining vertices of the cuboctahedron.

I believe I can find some of them easily, but I would like to be 100% certain of all of their accuracy. So I went to use maple's functions for defining and exploring archimedean solids, and to define an archimedean solid, you are only allowed to define one point, the center, and the radius, you can't specify any other vertices or angles.

It is really a simple problem, but I don't quite trust my intuition. I would assume I could just add angles where appropriate that correspond to the symmetries of a cuboctahedron and then convert back to cartesian coordinates. Any ideas of how to do this simply, or in maple?
If it is simple to do in maple, that would be nice, because there are many problems like this that pop up all the time when I am exploring something.

Thank you in advance.
 
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I figured out how to find them, it was fairly easy. I just used a quaternion rotation matrix and rotated about the known vertices according to the known rotation symmetry of a cuboctahedron and did this a few times, generating new vertices, and all was well. I also wrote one of the coordinates wrong in the original post. The third vertex was (1/2,sqrt(3)/6,sqrt(6)/3.
 

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