by quickfur » Wed Aug 07, 2024 11:11 pm
The cubinder could be unrolled into a cube and 4 cylinders, that's correct.
However, the spherinder can't be unrolled that way, because the manifold that joins its two spherical ends has curvature in two dimensions. It has spherical cross-section, so it can't be unrolled without splitting into many irregular pieces. Just like the map of the earth can't be represented faithfully on a 2D map without distortions. If you allow stretching and similar distortions, then you could unroll it into a cube (e.g. using Mercator projection to unfold the sphere with distortions). But that won't give you a good idea of its curled up shape because to roll it back up into the spherinder's lateral manifold you'll need to stretch / compress it in different areas. The areas near the pole would be distorted, for example, and must be compressed when folding it back up. Or you could use any of the various map projections that map the sphere to an oval or irregular shape. But again, it's not possible to do this without distortions.
The coninder can be unfolded into two cones, a cylinder, and a split cylinder, i.e., the extruded version of semicircle that you fold up into a cone.