Complex shapes of matter are formed by the repetitive alignment and combination of microscopic structural units. The attractions and repulsions of the particles create a perceived structural lattice. It is easy to get the creation process reversed in our thinking and assume that the lattice came first. The lattice represents a view of the forces that bind particles together.

Some lattices are the result of particles bound together as tight as possible, while in other lattices the particles are loosely bound and have gaps. Lattices can be classified by the way in which the particles are packed together. Particles in the lattice align and create different planes inside of the lattice. As we move out of a microscopic view and start to view the lattices planes the polyhedral forms begin to emerge. "Anything which is bounded by flat surfaces and which has well-defined corners has a polyhedral form."

In Visual-Synth a lattice may contain any number of polyhedra as long as the polyhedra structurally align with the manifest planes of the lattice. A lattice may be constructed from uniform polyhedra or be constructed by the combination of different polyhedra. It is the planar alignment of lattice intersection points that defines the lattice and its polyhedra.

The 'constructing' page of this web site contains details about how polyhedra are constructed from the lattice planes, and the 'stacking' page contains details about how the different polyhedra stack together in the lattice. The 'crystallography' page contains details about the nature and structure of crystals.

The lattice and polyhedra were selected as the visual environment in which the cells from Cellular-Automata can grow. In Visual-Synth a polyhedra is built inside a lattice with a specific packing mode. Each polyhedron has a rule associated with it that knows how to communicate with neighbors, propagate, split, move, and decay. In Visual-Synth each polyhedron is alive and can grow and die in the lattice.