(From: Google Warehouse)
“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”
Origami: Reducing a Mesh
Many of the 3d models you find in Google 3D Warehouse and Thiniverse will be too complex for folding.
This article describes a technique for reducing the number of polygons in the mesh. It involves downloading a free program called MeshLab (available for OS X and Windows). Follow these steps:
- Download the model in SketchUp format from the 3D
- Open the model in Rhino, Export the file as a “.obj” file (just as you do for opening it in Pepakura)
- Open the .obj file in MeshLab and follow the instructions in the above article
- Save the new/reduced mesh as “.obj” and continue wtih this file in Papakura
With this technique, I was able to take this model of a hand from the Google 3d Warehouse
and reduce it to this:
Which I was then able to unfold with Pepakura, far more reasonably:
Origami and Folding
TOOLS
- Trimble SketchUp: user-friendly 3D design environment, download the non-Pro version for free
- Grasshopper (parametric design) and Kangaroo (“Live Physics engine for interactive simulation, optimization and form-finding directly within Grasshopper) for Rhino
- Tomohiro Tochi: mathematician and origami expert, makes three simple and powerful programs for modeling origami folding
- Pepakura Designer: affordable commercial application for creating folding patterns from 3d models
BOOKS
- Check-out Ali’s ORIGAMI Books wish-list on Amazon
ARCHIVES OF 3D MODEL
- Google’s 3D warehouse: Many user-contributed models of everyday and strange objects; all in SketchUp format
- Thingiverse: More user-contributed 3d models; primarily geared towards 3d-printing
DIGITAL FABRICATION AND ORIGAMI (advanced applications)
- CurvedFolding: “a place where we can work together towards an open CAD standard, initially based on a quad-mesh geometry, for representing and modelling curved folding geometries…and show what we have crafted in paper, modelled in CAD and then fabricated”
- LiveComponents-NY: Blog by Seoul-based architect Hyoung-gul Kook; wide range advanced Rhino/Grasshopper-folding-related work; shares step-by-step tutorials on how to re-make GH definitions
- Space Symmetry Structure: Blog by London-based architect Daniel Piker; wide orange of advanced Grasshopper and Kangaroo definitions for attractors, origami, etc.
OTHER
- RoboFold: Design house focusing on CNC-folded metal and more
- Brian Chan: “the maker of anything” including a range of origami projects
- ShadowFolds: documents the work of origami master Chris Palmer
- Interactive Rings Tessellation: rings-type origami tessellation
- Paulo Taborda Barreto: extended Origami art
- Brief History of Curved Folding by Erik and Martin Demaine
- Christy Oates: Folding lamps, furniture and more