Schoen's Gyroid surface Ia3d

This structure is a section of Alan Schoen's celebrated Gyroid minimal surface of symmetry Ia3d.

The section represents a 14-sided polytope (Tetradecahedron), ie a cube truncated along the body diagonals. It has outer faces that are clipped vertical to 3-fold and 4-fold rotation axes.

The section and scale is chosen identical to that of "Rubis Gyroid PRL 50 mm" which represents the structure of chitin structure found in Callophrys Rubi butterflies and described e.g. in Saba et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 2011.

This structure, printed in white plastic, is the one that I occasionally bring to conferences or seminars.

Note that I have only ever printed this in white plastic, and have no experience about what it looks like in other materials or indeed if printing it in other materials works.