A zig-zag skew polygon or antiprismatic polygon[2] has vertices which alternate on two parallel planes, and thus must be even-sided.
Regular skew polygons in 3 dimensions (and regular skew apeirogons in two dimensions) are always zig-zag.
Skew polygons in three dimensions
A regular skew polygon is a faithful symmetric realization of a polygon in dimension greater than 2. In 3 dimensions a regular skew polygon has vertices alternating between two parallel planes.
Examples are shown on the uniform square and pentagon antiprisms. The star antiprisms also generate regular skew polygons with different connection order of the top and bottom polygons. The filled top and bottom polygons are drawn for structural clarity, and are not part of the skew polygons.
Petrie polygons are regular skew polygons defined within regular polyhedra and polytopes. For example, the five Platonic solids have 4-, 6-, and 10-sided regular skew polygons, as seen in these orthogonal projections with red edges around their respective projective envelopes. The tetrahedron and the octahedron include all the vertices in their respective zig-zag skew polygons, and can be seen as a digonal antiprism and a triangular antiprism respectively.
Petries polygons of Platonic solids
Regular skew polygon as vertex figure of regular skew polyhedron
Skew vertex figures of the 3 infinite regular skew polyhedra
{4,6|4}
{6,4|4}
{6,6|3}
Regular skew hexagon {3}#{ }
Regular skew square {2}#{ }
Regular skew hexagon {3}#{ }
Regular skew polygons in four dimensions
In 4 dimensions, a regular skew polygon can have vertices on a Clifford torus and related by a Clifford displacement. Unlike zig-zag skew polygons, skew polygons on double rotations can include an odd-number of sides.
Williams, Robert (1979). The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure: A Source Book of Design. Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN0-486-23729-X. "Skew Polygons (Saddle Polygons)" §2.2
Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular complex polytopes (1974). Chapter 1. Regular polygons, 1.5. Regular polygons in n dimensions, 1.7. Zigzag and antiprismatic polygons, 1.8. Helical polygons. 4.3. Flags and Orthoschemes, 11.3. Petrie polygons
Coxeter, H. S. M. Petrie Polygons.Regular Polytopes, 3rd ed. New York: Dover, 1973. (sec 2.6 Petrie Polygons pp. 24–25, and Chapter 12, pp. 213–235, The generalized Petrie polygon)
Coxeter, H. S. M. & Moser, W. O. J. (1980). Generators and Relations for Discrete Groups. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN0-387-09212-9. (1st ed, 1957) 5.2 The Petrie polygon {p,q}.
John Milnor: On the total curvature of knots, Ann. Math. 52 (1950) 248–257.
J.M. Sullivan: Curves of finite total curvature, ArXiv:math.0606007v2