Net (polyhedron)

The power or the folding of a polyhedron or a geometric body is a diagram illustrating the spread in the plane areas, after it has been cut open at some edges. Networks also serve as craft template to recreate the body.

The net of a cube for example, consists of six rectangles that can be arranged in a cross shape.

Folds can be generalized to higher dimensions.

Examples

Net of a tetrahedron

Net of a cylinder

Net of a cone

The power of a oloid is equal to its trace when rolling

The three-dimensional network of a tesseract

There are exactly eleven ways to unfold a cube, see Cube network.