The general mathematical concept embodied in a Wigner–Seitz cell is more commonly called a Voronoi cell, and the partition of the plane into these cells for a given set of point sites is known as a Voronoi diagram.
The cell may be chosen by first picking a lattice point. After a point is chosen, lines are drawn to all nearby lattice points. At the midpoint of each line, another line is drawn normal to each of the first set of lines. The smallest area enclosed in this way is called the Wigner–Seitz primitive cell.
For a 3-dimensional lattice, the steps are analogous, but in step 2 instead of drawing perpendicular lines, perpendicular planes are drawn at the midpoint of the lines between the lattice points.
As in the case of all primitive cells, all area or space within the lattice can be filled by Wigner–Seitz cells and there will be no gaps.
Nearby lattice points are continually examined until the area or volume enclosed is the correct area or volume for a primitive cell. Alternatively, if the basis vectors of the lattice are reduced using lattice reduction only a set number of lattice points need to be used. In two-dimensions only the lattice points that make up the 4 unit cells that share a vertex with the origin need to be used. In three-dimensions only the lattice points that make up the 8 unit cells that share a vertex with the origin need to be used.