Truchet tiles

In information visualization and graphic design, Truchet tiles are square tiles decorated with patterns that are not rotationally symmetric. When placed within a square tiling of the plane, they can form varied patterns, and the orientation of each tile can be used to visualize information associated with the tile's position within the tiling.^[1]

Truchet tiles were first described in a 1704 memoir by Sébastien Truchet entitled "Mémoire sur les combinaisons", and were popularized in 1987 by Cyril Stanley Smith.^[1][2]

Variations

Contrasting triangles

The tile originally studied by Truchet is split along the diagonal into two triangles of contrasting colors. The tile has four possible orientations.

Some examples of surface filling made tiling such a pattern.

With a scheme:

With random placement:

Quarter-circles

A second common form of the Truchet tiles, due to Smith (1987), decorates each tile with two quarter-circles connecting the midpoints of adjacent sides. Each such tile has two possible orientations.

The Truchet tile

Inverse of the Truchet tile, created by any 90° rotation or orthogonal flip

We have such a tiling:

This type of tile has also been used in abstract strategy games Trax and the Black Path Game, prior to Smith's work.^[1]

Diagonal

A labyrinth can be generated by tiles in the form of a white square with a black diagonal. As with the quarter-circle tiles, each such tile has two orientations.^[3] Nick Montfort considers the single line of computer code required to generate such patterns - 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 - to be "a concrete poem, a found poem".^[3]

A labyrinth generated from diagonal tiles

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Truchet tiles.

• Girih tiles
• Wallpaper group
• Wang tiles

References

External links

• Weisstein, Eric W. "Truchet Tiling". MathWorld. 

• Truchet in 2D and 3D: http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/texture_colour/periodic/
• Javascript animation: http://perso.orange.fr/jean-paul.davalan/divers/truchet/truc.html

Tessellation
Periodic Pythagorean Rhombille Schwarz triangle Rectangle Domino Uniform tiling & honeycomb Coloring Convex Kisrhombille Wallpaper group Wythoff
Aperiodic Ammann–Beenker Aperiodic set of prototiles List Einstein problem Socolar–Taylor Gilbert Penrose Pentagonal Pinwheel Quaquaversal Rep-tile & Self-tiling Sphinx Truchet
Other Anisohedral & Isohedral Architectonic & catoptric Circle Limit III Computer graphics Honeycomb Isotoxal Packing Problems Domino Wang Heesch's Squaring Prototile Conway criterion Girih Regular Division of the Plane Regular grid Substitution Voronoi Voderberg
By vertex type Spherical 2n 33.n V33.n 42.n V42.n Regular 2∞ 36 44 63 Semi- regular 32.4.3.4 V32.4.3.4 33.42 33.∞ 34.6 V34.6 3.4.6.4 (3.6)2 3.122 42.∞ 4.6.12 4.82 Hyper- bolic 32.4.3.5 32.4.3.6 32.4.3.7 32.4.3.8 32.4.3.∞ 32.5.3.5 32.5.3.6 32.6.3.6 32.6.3.8 32.7.3.7 32.8.3.8 33.4.3.4 32.∞.3.∞ 34.7 34.8 34.∞ 35.4 37 38 3∞ (3.4)3 (3.4)4 3.4.62.4 3.4.7.4 3.4.8.4 3.4.∞.4 3.6.4.6 (3.7)2 (3.8)2 3.142 3.162 (3.∞)2 3.∞2 42.5.4 42.6.4 42.7.4 42.8.4 42.∞.4 45 46 47 48 4∞ (4.5)2 (4.6)2 4.6.12 4.6.14 V4.6.14 4.6.16 V4.6.16 4.6.∞ (4.7)2 (4.8)2 4.8.10 V4.8.10 4.8.12 4.8.14 4.8.16 4.8.∞ 4.102 4.10.12 4.122 4.12.16 4.142 4.162 4.∞2 (4.∞)2 54 55 56 5∞ 5.4.6.4 (5.6)2 5.82 5.102 5.122 (5.∞)2 64 65 66 68 6.4.8.4 (6.8)2 6.82 6.102 6.122 6.162 73 74 77 7.62 7.82 7.142 83 84 86 88 812 8.62 8.162 ∞3 ∞4 ∞5 ∞∞ ∞.62 ∞.82