Improper rotation
In geometry, an improper rotation (also called rotation-reflection, rotoreflection, rotary reflection, or rotoinversion) is an isometry in Euclidean space that is a combination of a rotation about an axis and a reflection in a plane perpendicular to that axis. Reflection and inversion are each a special case of improper rotation. Any improper rotation is an affine transformation and, in cases that keep the coordinate origin fixed, a linear transformation. It is used as a symmetry operation in the context of geometric symmetry, molecular symmetry and crystallography, where an object that is unchanged by a combination of rotation and reflection is said to have improper rotation symmetry.
| Group | S4 | S6 | S8 | S10 | S12 | 
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subgroups | C2 | C3, S2 = Ci | C4, C2 | C5, S2 = Ci | C6, S4, C3, C2 | 
| Example | beveled digonal antiprism | triangular antiprism | square antiprism | pentagonal antiprism | hexagonal antiprism | 
| Antiprisms with directed edges have rotoreflection symmetry. p-antiprisms for odd p contain inversion symmetry, Ci. | |||||