Altair grid type

[mquevill]

Continuing discussion from chrisboyle/sgtpuzzles#479

A very interesting grid type to add would be an Altair tiling with squares, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, and octagons (though not all are regular).

One concern is finding integer ratios for both sqrt(2) and sqrt(3) (possibly more?) without getting exceedingly large. Another possibility is finding ratios for like sqrt(2)/2 or sqrt(3)/2, if these play nicer with integers.

Another compromise that must be made is determining which shapes are regular (or as close to regular as integers will allow) and which are going to be skewed a bit. In the example image from krazydad.com, the heptagons are the most obviously irregular, but the hexagons or pentagons must be too, since the internal angles of 5-, 6-, and 8-gons do not add up to 360° (108+120+135=363°).

[ER-95]

I'll see what I can do on this in the coming days; I have a fair bit of downtime.

As a side question, once this is complete would it be possible to compile an Android build of the app which includes both the Compass and Altair grid types?

[mquevill]

Simon Tatham only maintains the Windows, MacOS, and browser builds. (Along with providing the source code to be built on Linux.) All of the ports are maintained by other people, and Chris Boyle is the maintainer of (one of) the Android port. I have not tried to update his port of it, but might try to see if we can bring new life to that app (since it's based on upstream from over a year ago).