Border Modifications
In virtually all the examples shown in the Essentials and Mosaics/Tilings
sections, the borders of polygons and other shapes consist of
simple black lines. Border modifications can enhance a tessellation's
overall look, and, in some cases, change it significantly. Borders
can vary in color, be enlarged or shrunk, or be transformed into
continuous strings that are woven throughout a tessellation. Additionally,
borders can become distinct shapes and acquire their own borders!
Note that some of these modifications will cause designs to violate
the strict definition of tessellation–but that is what the Beyond
section is about!
Click for larger images and citation information
The borders of the shapes in this tessellation have been duplicated
twice to form a triple border. The gaps among the sets of borders
form thin polygons which can be considered new elements of the
tessellation.
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Suppose this tessellation originated as the regular tessellation
(6.6.6) composed of the black hexagons seen above. One of the
steps toward creating the final version of the tessellation is
to greatly enlarge the golden borders. Another step is to add
the red equilateral triangles (as shown above) which divide the
borders into groups of thin rectangles. In doing so, the borders
themselves become part of the tessellation.
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The outlined borders complement the flower designs drawn inside
of each repeated shape
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The borders of the simple regular tessellation (6.6.6) have been
enlarged and modified to look like interwoven strands
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It may not be clear how the interwoven technique exhibited by
the fourth example works. Here is an animation showing not only
how borders may be interwoven, but also how borders can be made
out of existing shapes:
How an interwoven design is
created from a demiregular tessellation
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One final example of the interwoven-border technique:
Cick the image for citation information
If you examine this tessellation carefully, you will see that
the borders are interwoven.
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 Visit the templates page for templates of tessellations whose
borders you can modify using the techniques shown on this page.
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