More on the math of hill-and-valley weaving

Above, the quadrilateral domain of a map edge.

Above, the hill-and-valley coloring of the quadrilateral domain of a map edge via Mrs. Stott's expansion, Me(Me(m)). Black = Up; White = Down; Pink = Saddle.

Above, the hill-and-valley coloring of the quadrilateral domain of a map edge via Ring, Me(Su(m)). Black = Up; White = Down; Pink = Saddle.

From the previous post it is clear that we must start from a bipartite map (a bipartite graph embedded in a surface) in order to design a basket that can wear a hill-and-valley corrugation of its surface. There are many such maps. For example, any quadrangulation of the sphere is a bipartite map. Also, since the 3D cartesian grid of points with integer coordinates can be bicolored (e.g., simply color each vertex according to the parity of x+y+z), the surfaces of polycubes and voxelized objects (image below) are bipartite maps regardless of their (necessarily orientable) topology.

If we must start from a non-bipartite map, the map operation Radial (a.k.a., Quadrangulation), which doubles the number of edges in the map, always yields a bipartite map--the partition of vertices being respectively, the original vertices and the new vertices that are added in the center of each original face. Taking the Medial of this map (at the cost of another doubling of edges) yields a weavable pattern. So the entire chained operation on a non-bipartite map m is Me(Ra(m)). Since Medial gives the same result whether applied to a map or its dual; and Ra() and Me() of any given map are in fact duals, Me(Ra(m)) = Me(Me(m)) = Me^2(m). This compound operation, "the medial of the medial", or "medial squared", is also known as Mrs. Stott's expansion.

Another way to make a given map bipartite is to subdivide the edges, in other words, insert degree-2 vertices in the middle of each original edge. So the compound map operation needed in this case is Me(Su(M)), a map operation which I have elsewhere called Ring ("Extra ways to see: An artist's guide to map operations." Hyperseeing: Proceedings of ISAMA 2011, pages 111–121, Summer 2011. See chart below.) because it generates weave patterns associated with chainmail.