1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. The University of Tokyo
We present a method to compute crease patterns to fold arbitrary 3D shells into compact versions. We validate the approach on diverse fabricated examples.
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The miniaturization of shell structures presents a versatile and complex challenge, bridging geometry with diverse practical applications. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for computing origami crease patterns to compress arbitrary 3D shell objects. First, we employ the adapted Material Point Method (MPM) to simulate the compression of a target surface and obtain an initial folded configuration. Since MPM produces overly smooth curved surfaces, their crease patterns are unsuitable for practical origami fabrication. We then propose a novel Folding Line Extraction (FLE) method that optimizes these smoothed surfaces to extract folding lines that achieve the target compression with minimal deformation and stretching outside the crease lines. This method produces smooth curved folding lines. Fabrication and experimental validation of the extracted patterns demonstrate their effectiveness and applicability in real-world scenarios.
Our MPM and FLE Results
MPM Result
FLE Result
Undeformed mesh
Deformed mesh
Undeformed mesh
Deformed mesh
Stanford Bunny
Atlas 9
Fabrication Results
Computed folded state
Unfolded state
Folded state
Stanford Bunny
Atlas 9