Spherical Models

Rating:
Summary: How to Make a Geodesic Sphere from Paper
Review: Ever wonder how to make a a model of a geodesic dome? This is a book for recreational math enthusiasts and Buck-Minster-fuller-philes, the most hands-on introduction to geodesic geometry out there. Just page after page of sphere models, nothing else. It's a nice companion to Wenninger's classic, "Polyhedral Models," but possibly is a little redundant.

Rating:
Summary: Super Models
Review: I needed some answers in a hurry to a lot of questions I had on spherical approximations, and this book came through. So I don't have any complaints.

This is indeed a book on models. The organization is set up more to teach you or give you and understanding of spherical polyhedra by building models. So it is a little difficult to get answers to specific questions without actually working through building various types of models. There are some areas where I would have thought some trigonometry would have been worked out, rather than just giving the answers to lengths and angles. There are other areas where some discussion on the basic polyhedra could have been presented, rather than assuming the reader/modeller understood these from the start.

I will say the book is a little dated. I have made my constructions with heavy use of a 3-D CAD program. A lot of time will be saved from manually drawing out the needed shapes.

But if you are willing to work through the book, I am sure you will come away from it as a master.

Rating:
Summary: Super Models
Review: I needed some answers in a hurry to a lot of questions I had on spherical approximations, and this book came through. So I don't have any complaints.

This is indeed a book on models. The organization is set up more to teach you or give you and understanding of spherical polyhedra by building models. So it is a little difficult to get answers to specific questions without actually working through building various types of models. There are some areas where I would have thought some trigonometry would have been worked out, rather than just giving the answers to lengths and angles. There are other areas where some discussion on the basic polyhedra could have been presented, rather than assuming the reader/modeller understood these from the start.

I will say the book is a little dated. I have made my constructions with heavy use of a 3-D CAD program. A lot of time will be saved from manually drawing out the needed shapes.

But if you are willing to work through the book, I am sure you will come away from it as a master.