Triangular antiprism

The triangular antiprism, or trap, is a triangle-based antiprism. The version with all equal edges is the regular octahedron, one of the Platonic solids, but other versions exist with isosceles triangles as their sides. In the latter case, their Coxeter diagram could be given as xo3ox&#y. They are formed by alternating a general hexagonal prism. Given a triangular antiprism with base edges of length b and side edges of length l, the corresponding hexagonal prism has base edges of length $$\frac{b\sqrt3}{3}$$ and side edges of length $$\sqrt{l^2-\frac{b^2}{3}}$$.

Any such triangular antiprism has an equatorial rectangle section with edges of the same lengths as the antiprism.

The bases of a triangular antiprism are rotated by 60° with respect to each other. If the rotation angle is different the resulting polyhedron has scalene triangles as lateral faces and is called a triangular gyroprism.

A notable case occurs as the alternation of the uniform hexagonal prism. This specific case has base edges of length $$\sqrt3$$ and side edges of length $$\sqrt2$$.

Vertex coordinates
Cartesian coordinates for a triangular antiprism created from two triangles of edge length b laced by edges of length ℓ, centered at the origin, are given by:


 * $$±\left(0,\,\frac{\sqrt3b}{3},\,\sqrt{\frac{3b^2-l^2}{12}}\right),$$
 * $$±\left(±\frac{b}{2},\,-\frac{\sqrt3b}{6},\,\sqrt{\frac{3b^2-12l^2}{12}}\right).$$

In vertex figures
A triangular prism with base edges of length 1 and side edges of length $\sqrt{2}$ occurs as the vertex figure of the small prismatodecachoron.