Great software for Tilings, Patterns, Symmetry

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

A list of interactive, visual, easy-to-use software or tilings and patterns.

girih app

girih tiling app 6792f
girih app. For Mac. Girih Polygon Pattern Desig‪n‬ Create geometric Designs. by Stefan Hintz https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/girih/id1400485589 (last checked 2018-06-22 2021-04-13)

Hexagonal Grids

hexagonal grids patel 9c2d9
〔Hexagonal Grids By Amit Patel. At http://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/ , accessed on 2015-11-23〕

A tutorial on everything about hexagonal grids. Coordinate system, finding path, etc.

Hyperplay

hyperplay 2014-09-13
http://timhutton.github.io/hyperplay/ by Tim Hutton.

Kali (wallpaper symmetry)

Kali screenshot
Kali.

http://www.geometrygames.org/Kali/index.html Windows Mac OS 9

Kali by Jeff Weeks. It is a interactive program for drawing figures of plane symmetry.

Taprats

taprats tiling 9pqgm
taprats, Islamic Patterns Generator, By Craig S Kaplan. http://sourceforge.net/projects/taprats/ Windows Java (2002-10, 2019-07-15)

〔Computer Graphics and Geometric Ornamental Design By Craig S Kaplan. At https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/other/phd/〕

Books

old

Mathematica PlaneTiling

plane tiling mathematica 2016-05-04 35001
Xah Lee plane tiling mathematica 2016-05-04

WolframLang: Plane Tiling Package 📦

PlaneTiling is a Mathematica package for tiling and symmetry illustrations. Author is Xah Lee (me). Requires Mathematica to run.

For more programs that does symmetry or tiling related topic, see Wallpaper groups: References and Related Web Sites .

RepTiles

repTilesScreen
repTiles

http://www-ab.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/people/delgado/welcome.html Mac OS 9

repTilesIcon
repTilesIcon

RepTiles v.2.0.1 is a plane tiling shareware written by two mathematicians Daniel H Huson and ?.

The program is capable of generating all possible periodic tiling of the plane.

By the words of the authors:

… for interactively designing and systematically generating periodic 2-dimensional tilings and patterns, study symmetry and 2-dimensional geometry, if you are a mathematician, enumerate possible 2-dimensional crystal-structures, if you are a crystallographer or chemist, design complex and interesting patterns, if you are a designer, or explore a whole new world of fascinating periodic structures, if you are, well, just interested.

This program is a bit mathematical, but can be fun for layperson. It is a rare tool for crystallographer and mathematicians. URL: ftp://ftp.uni-bielefeld.de/pub/math/tiling/reptiles/. (Note: This program is from 1995 era. The software downloaded from the ftp site is missing data files, making the software not usable. I don't have a copy of it.)

Bob (Penrose tiling)

Penrose tiling

Bob is a Windows program that does Penrose tilings, by Stephen Collins at http://www.stephencollins.net/Penrose/Default.aspx Windows

Tyler (tiling)

http://www.superliminal.com/geometry/tyler/gallery/ Java

Tyler is a Java applet that draw tilings. It is written by Melinda Green and Don Hatch.

Escher Web Sketch

http://escher.epfl.ch/escher/ Java

Escher Web Sketch. This is a Java program that lets user interactively draw symmetrical patterns. By Wes Hardaker and Gervais Chapuis.

Tess

tess by pedagoguery software 88e95
Tess by pedagoguery software

http://www.peda.com/tess/Welcome.htmlMac OS 9 Windows

Tess is a symmetry-drawing program made by Pedagoguery Software Inc. Available for Mac and Windows.