Rosemary Williamson - Sierpinski Sphere

I created this piece of artwork using a 3D graphics engine I developed in Python. 3D graphics is an extremely satisfying application of vector geometry. For instance, to make a decent approximation of real lighting you need to keep track of the direction of the normal to each polygon and let the brightness of the polygon change depending on the angle between the normal and the light-source vector. This ‘Sierpinski Sphere’ is the result of an interesting effect that occurs when you ‘smooth out’ an icosahedron to make a sphere-like object, but miss out the middle triangle at each step.

Romy is a Mathematics Undergraduate in the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford.