Frankly, this isn't much fun unless you can think like a programmer. I don’t have any intuitive graphical tools for constructing four dimensional objects. I can, however, tell you how I made the files that come with Spin It! You will need to know how to use a Macintosh resource editor or compiler like Rez.
First: You need a clear mathematical description of the object you want to represent. That means, you need be able to calculate the coordinates of each vertex, and which pairs of vertices are connected by each edge. For the Platonic Hypersolids, I got much of my information from Regular Polytopes by H. M. S. Coxeter. See pages 156-7 of the Dover edition.
Second: You need a resource editing tool. I used a Rez compiler. The Rez file “polytope.r” defines the resource types you will need, as does the Resorcerer file called “TMPL’s for Spin It!”. The ‘Dim0’ resource is the list of vertices, and the ‘Dim1’ resource is the list of edges. The resource ID's are always 256. See the comments in the sample file “Hyper-Octahedron.r” to see how it works.
Third: You need to describe your resource file. I did this in two ways, depending on how complicated the object was. For simple objects I wrote the Rez source file directly using a text editor. For more complicated objects, I wrote a C program which wrote the Rez source file.
For an example of a Rez source that I wrote directly, see “Hyper-Octahedron.r”. For an example of a C program that writes Rez compiler source, see “Calc {3,3,5}.c”.
The Resorcerer file called "TMPL’s for Spin It!" has templates which will allow you to view and write Spin It! object resources. That's got to be the hard way though. Alas, they won't work for ResEdit.
Fourth: You need to compile or otherwise create your object file. In my case, that meant running it my Rez source through the Rez compiler and assigning the resulting file the file type ‘SpnD’ and the creator type ‘Spnr’.
Fifth: You need to test your file. That means opening it with Spin It! and seeing if you got it remotely right. If you’re anything like me, the first pass will look like a tangled mess. Be persistant.
Sixth: When you have a resource file that works, you should add the text that shows up in the Get Info... window. Again, use any resource editing tool (I used ResEdit here) and create a ‘TEXT’ resource (and optionally a ‘styl’ resource) with an ID of 256.
Seventh: I would appreciate it if you’d send me a copy of any object files you create. Thanks!
