@acer The second link in your answer above works beautifully. I have now archived, and invoked in several worksheets, a procedure which rotates a complex 3D display around any position vector and executes several times faster than plottools[rotate] around a line defined by two points.

Thanks hugely!

@acer Thanks for this advice. However I have zero experience with library archives and the initialization file and I  find the help pages confusing. Please give me or refer me to an example of a specific procedure being saved to a specific .mla library archive and then invoked in a subsequent worksheet so I can duplicate your commands to accomplish this.

@roman_pearce Thanks for the extensive survey of processors!

@acer Thanks for your quick response. This is useful information

Hi Kitonum,

Thanks for the rotate command.

I have modified your worksheet to display a Meissner tetrahedron, a shape with truly constant width.

The modifications are lengthy, so if you want to see the modified worksheet I can paste it into my next Maple Primes comment or send it to you as an email attachment.

  Regards...Earl

Hi Kitonum,

Thank you greatly for this code which accurately displays a true Rouleaux tetrahedron. I knew how to plot a sphere with centre at a given vertex but not how to limit its extent within its intersections with the spheres with centres at the other three vertices.

The eliminate command is new to me, but the help text for it does not describe how the elimination process is conducted. Can you refer me to such a description, perhaps in another web site?

    Best regards...Earl

Hi, Thanks for your reply. I'm in no hurry since I am a 72 year old retired computer programmer who codes Maple applications in math and physics for my own edification and amusement. Any further information you can give me will be much appreciated.

Hi acer,

Thanks for the code to display a Rouleaux tetrahedron (Rt).

I executed the code you posted in Maple 15, but the MathApp you provided a link to gave an error when I tried to execute it in Maple 15. Does this MathApp depend on commands from a later version of Maple?

However I don't think the image the code produced for me is a correct shape. As you can see in Wikipedia's website for Rouleaux_tetrahedron, the correct shape is not a surface of revolution since the faces of a Rt meet at an angle.

The Meissner tetrahedron, a modification of a Rt which changes the latter into a true constant width object, also is not a surface of revolution. The modification process can be seen at web site Meissner_en.pdf.

Earl