WOLFRAM|DEMONSTRATIONS PROJECT

Roulette (Hypotrochogon) of a Polygon Rolling inside Another Polygon

​
base polygon
rolling polygon
square
pentagon
hexagon
heptagon
octagon
triangle
square
pentagon
hexagon
heptagon
pole offset from centroid
prolate hypotrochogon
pole in center
pole at vertex
rolling angle
-0.3
zoom control
2.5
show polygons
hide section markers
A hypotrochogon is the trace (roulette) of a point attached to a regular polygon rolling without slipping inside another regular polygon [1].
The hypotrochogon can be curtate if the tracing point is inside the rolling polygon, or prolate if it is outside.
If the tracing point is at a vertex of the rolling polygon, the trace becomes a hypocyclogon.
In this Demonstration, the base polygon and the rolling polygon have the same edge length. The resulting hypotrochogon is a sequence of circle arcs with the same subtending angle and the vertices of the base polygon as centers.
The rolling polygon and the pole are subject to a sequence of three geometric transformations:
1. a stepwise rotation by a multiple of
2π
m
around its centroid
2. a stepwise rotation by a multiple of
-
2π
n
around the center of the base polygon
3. a continuous rotation by
ϕmod-
2π(n-m)
nm
around the vertex of the base polygon it was moved to by the previous rotation
n
is the number of vertices of the base polygon.
m
is the number of vertices of the rolling polygon.
ϕ
is the angular position of the rolling polygon around its centroid.