What is a Geodesic Grid?
Well, it is a shape made of hexagons and pentagons, like a Truncated Icosahedron. However, the geodesic has as many faces as needed to make it as spherical as needed, like a Geodesic Dome.
What does it look like?
Something like this:
Why do you need this?
Originally, the idea to try to make this came from a desire to play Civilization on a sphere using hexagons, instead of on a plane using squares. So, I decided to first off figure out the math and try to make the shape itself. Forget any kind of gameplay, this was all about the shape.
Where to start?
Well, with a bit of google-fu, I came across an excellent little article called Geodesic Math by Joe Clinton. You can view the article pdf here. In the article, Joe discusses how to subdivide a polyhedron to create a new polyhedron with even more faces.
Familiarize yourself with Joe Clinton’s article, and in Part 2, I’ll start to show how I go about creating my Geodesic Grid using C# and XNA. You don’t need to completely understand the article, as I’ll be showing how it translates to code. However, it’s still a good idea to try and read through it.
Disclaimer
I don’t claim that my way of programming is the best way. As far as design patterns and whatnot go, my way works for me, and the code gets the job done. If anyone can offer a more “elegant” approach to anything I’m doing, I’m all ears.
[...] “JeBuS” I-Don’t-Know-His-Last-NameSchaeflein published a multi part article about Geodesic Truncated Icosahedron (part 2 is here, part 3 is pending) in C# and the XNA Framework. Geodisc Truncated Icosahedrons are [...]