The Mathematics of Mitering and Its Artful …（斜接的数学及其巧妙的u2026）.pdf

The Mathematics of Mitering and Its Artful Application Tom Verhoeff Koos Verhoeff Faculty of Mathematics and CS Valkenswaard, Netherlands Eindhoven University of Technology Den Dolech 2 5612 AZ Eindhoven, Netherlands Email: T.Verhoeff@tue.nl Abstract We give a systematic presentation of the mathematics behind the classic miter joint and variants, like the skew miter joint and the (skew) fold joint. The latter is especially useful for connecting strips at an angle. We also address the problems that arise from constructing a closed 3D path from beams by using miter joints all the way round. We illustrate the possibilities with artwork making use of various miter joints. 1 Introduction The miter joint is well-known in the Arts, if only as a way of making fine frames for pictures and paintings. In its everyday application, a common problem with miter joints occurs when cutting a baseboard for walls meeting at an angle other than exactly 90 degrees. However, there is much more to the miter joint than meets the eye. In this paper, we will explore variations and related mathematical challenges, and show some artwork that this provoked. In Section 2 we introduce the problem domain and its terminology. A systematic mathematical treatment is presented in Section 3. Section 4 shows some artwork based on various miter joints. We conclude the paper in Section 5 with some pointers to further work. 2 Problem Domain and Terminology We will now describe how we encountered new problems related to the miter joint. To avoid misunderstand- ings, we first introduce some t