A brief tutorial on SnapPy, a user interface to the SnapPea kernel which runs on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. SnapPy combines a link editor and 3D-graphics for Dirichlet domains and cusp neighborhoods with a powerful command-line interface based on the Python programming language. The program is available at http://www.math.uic.edu/~t3m/SnapPy/doc/
I heartily thank Marc Culler and Nathan Dunfield for their all their very hard work both for making Jeff Weeks' great SnapPea program available on modern Macs as well as upgrading the program to incorporate many new and important features. I look forward to many hours of working with this program to deepen my understanding of hyperbolic geometry of 3-manifolds.
manifoldman 2 years ago