Does anybody knows the definitions for a Ghost cube. Angles, measurments or something else.

Or is the one and only rule: every piece must be different from each other?

Thanks for your help.

I want to add some additional "rules" for a ghost cube:
2. It must be stickered with a single colors.
3. The solved state is a midturn state.

Andreas

I think the ghost cube is a cube with its axis twisted 60 degrees around a corner, while also in a midturn state

I do...

For the Ghost Cube, I made sure every piece was different, and that it was not easy to tell what the puzzle mechanism was from any one side. When I was designing it, I tweaked the design to align the cuts on some of the faces so that the cut line had an unexpected angle in it. (you can see this in some of the pictures) I also tried to keep the stickers from being too tiny (at least where I could...) to make it more manageable as a finished, stickered puzzle. My main inspiration was Tony Fisher's Golden Cube, but as I was designing the Ghost Cube, I wanted it to be different, so black and white became the color scheme (except for the first one...).


Here is the design process: The precise angles I used will not be too helpful as the whole thing was a compound of several angles to get the puzzle to look the way I wanted.
(keep in mind, this was done on a computer with much iteration...)
1 - I started with a 3x3x3 mechanism, but with a lot of "extra material" so the puzzle looked a little like a 7x7x7, but bandaged down to a 3x3x3 with a skinny middle slice.
2 - Then I adjusted each slice to be misaligned slightly (yes, all 3 layers)
3 - From there, I created a new plane to form the final cube shape, and skewed it at an angle different from the cube layers, then cut the cube shape out of the oversized 3x3x3
4 - Then I spent hours and hours adjusting the misalignment of the layers, and the skewed plane until I got a design I was happy with. I think it took less time to print it...

This sounds "easy", but in reality, step 4 is adjusting the angles in steps 2 and 3 over and over again. Every change required more changes until I declared the puzzle "done".

I know someone that can answer that.

Thank you very much for such a detail description of making a ghost cube.

But that is exactly this what I thought. There exist no instrucion book with measuremnet and scalings to design to cube.

Would you start your process again, the result will be a little bit different. The pattern of the cube is not unambiguous.

I've been looking at this sort of puzzle recently (ones with misaligned layers forming part of the solution).

I have only taken a quick glance at the Ghost cube but it does appear to use what I consider the optimum angles for a 3x3x3 of +36.87 and -36.87 for the top and bottom slice offsets (the exact angle is 2 x arctan(1/3) ). This "optimum" aligns cuts the for the left slice with cuts for the right slice and vice versa which helps hide the original shape once further transformations are performed. The attached image illustrates these turns.

Steve

Steve, this is a very interesting concept to start this project. Has this cube made before? Do you know this?

I had thought exactly the same thing about the ghost cube's construction except I thought it might be one face at *that* angle (where the edge is moved one cubie width over the centre until the cut lines up), and the other face at a 45* twist (half a twist).

Clauswe,

I haven't made one (yet!) and I have no idea whether the design is unique to me or whether I am simply treading where others have gone before.

I've spent the last week or so looking at how I can use my home printer (a Makerbot) to create custom 3x3x3 mods and have generated a generic OpenSCAD script for doing so. It's still at a "work in progress" stage but can be found here (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:56574)

It needs a little refinement because the pieces are not terribly easy to print without support. I'm currently working on refining it so corners and edges are printed in two pieces that snap together (and keeping my fingers crossed that I will be successful).

I hope to have printed some sample mods soon and will share pictures here as and when I do.

Steve

Claus, I have provided a few pictures in this thread. You see that Hungab's version is close but slightly different.

A comparison between Adam's pictures and my photos (for more details, please, go to the mentioned thread):



Comparison of Adam's and Hungab's handmade version:



Maybe, the pictures help.

Well, this is my Ghost Cube (or soon will be ... )

Gus, you are really close to the original.

Konrad, many thanks for the detail pictures you made.

I would be grateful for assistance in creating a ghost-cube.