Category: Origami

Origami Book Pictures

Another thing I did over the weekend was to take some pictures for my forthcoming origami ebook. I folded new versions of three 3 models. The Canoe and Adirondack Chair are of 8″ squares on Wyndstone still had leftover from other projects. The Octopus is from an 8.5″ square of elephant poo paper (really!) that I got at an auction a few OUSA conventions ago. It’s really soft and textural and great for that model.

I also did a layout for the cover, at various resolutions and levels of cropping. This image really pushes the limits of my camera, which is just a digital point-n-shoot with a macro mode, but has no interchangeable lenses or control over the f-stop and all that. With a better camera I could probably get a sharper picture, but this will do since it only has to display the size of an iPad screen.

Origami eBook

One problem with working on big things is alot of time can go by without much to say about that progress you’ve been making. So it’s been this winter. At work we’re one day away from being code complete for the next release of our software, which means the balance of the month will be spent doing bug fixes and tidying up loose ends, a welcome shift from jamming out massive amounts of new code every day.

Meanwhile, in the material world we’ve begun checking out cars to replace our venerable Jeep, a.k.a. El Jeepo. I’m happy to say after having test-driven the new Ford Explorer, it’s big enough and handles pretty well and has no obvious problems. I have some questions but for now it’s the one to beat. Next stop is to look at the most glamorous of all cars, the minivan of sport-u’s, the Honda Pilot.

In completely unrelated news, I’ve really been getting into playing Go lately. A couple weeks ago Michelle dragged out my Go board and and asked me to teach her. As we got into it, I realized I’d been misunderstanding one subtle but important rule all these years. So I googled the rules and ended up downloading a computer Go game. Now I’ve played a few hundred games and can beat the computer every time on a 7×7 board and about half the time on a 9×9 board. But if I loose, the mistake is always in the first few moves.

Anyhoo, so it is with origami these days. I haven’t said much about it, but the main thing I’ve been spending my time on this winter is my origami eBook. You may recall I’ve been working on an origami (print) book, but back in December I changed tack to concentrate on the eBook, mainly because my friend Brian had set up a publishing company for origami eBooks, and was looking for content. Nothing motivates like the prospect of demand for one’s work.

I’m happy to announce I’ve finished the diagramming for eBook. You might think this is fairly trivial, as most of the models were already diagrammed. But you’d be mistaken. It was a pretty big deal to bring everything over to ebook format. I basically redid all the diagrams with an eye toward refining the line weights and that sort of thing. The drawings have to read on both the apple iPhone platform and the Kindle, which are pretty different. On top of that I was determined that the drawings should work well for print. So among the considerations were the different screen sizes and color capabilities. (We wanted the color images to look nice on iOS and come out good on the Kindle as well as greyscale.)

For the eBook I ultimately converged on a layout the featured one step per page. This is markedly different from the print layout, which has typically eight or nine steps per page. But the limiting factor is the small screen size of the iPhone. And anything that looks good that small looks great on the slightly larger Kindle.

So as I mentioned, the diagramming is now done. The eBook will feature twelve original models, totaling over 400 steps. (all hand drawn, Whew!) Now it’s on to the end game. I have to write the introduction and dedication, provide photos for all the models as well as cover art, and an appendix that covers the basic folds. Here for you edification are a few steps from the upcoming book.

Folding Pentagons

I’ve been working on an origami e-book that is on track to come out this spring. (More on that in a future post.) One of the models in it is my Fivefold Rose, which I’ve updated and improved. It’s based on a pentagon and the question of how to fold a regular pentagon from a square has been an age-old problem in origami. I know a few methods for approximating a regular pentagon, and with practice I’ve gotten good at eyeballing it so it comes out every time.

I recently discovered a new method in an old book from Japan from the 60’s. It’s been on my shelf for years, and I was on the verge of throwing it away and thought I’d flip thru it to see if there was anything worth saving it for, when I came across this little gem in the back of the book in with the classic bases. It’s based on the trick that the cosine of and 18 degree angle is within one percent of a 1:3 slope.

I’ve digrammed my own version of it, revising the steps to be clearer and more accurate, and making the folding sequence of subsequent steps reduce rather than amplify any folding errors. It’s pretty easy to get a perfect pentagon every time. The diagrams are essentially the first few steps of the new Fivefold Rose, thru forming the pentagon and some precreasing for the base.

The center of the pentagon is the center of the paper, which is useful for some applications. The tradeoff is that top corner of the pentagon is truncated (although you could just as easily fold a slightly smaller pentagon). For this model it doesn’t matter, and for alot of my pentagon-based polyhedra it doesn’t matter either. In any event it could easily be adapted to making a pentagon with the apex at the center of the top edge of the square by first folding the two long diagonals that would form the top point of a star embedded in the pentagon. I’m also exploring another method that uses the trick of the cosine of a 36 degree angle is very close to 4:5.

I showed it to John Montroll, the only other person I know who cares about this kind of thing like I do. In is book Origami Polyhedra Design he has a method for folding a golden rectangle from a square. The first time I saw it I immediately though there must be a way to use that to make a pentagon. It’s been in the back of mind ever since, but now I can forget about it. John has solved the problem and come up with a really elegant, mathematically perfect method for folding a pentagon in just 11 steps. Blew my mind when I saw it. Unfortunately you’ll have to wait for his next book to see it.

Giant Origami Santas

My friend Brian Webb has one of his origami designs featured in a new storefront display here in New York. Brian sez:

If you happen to be in NYC, stop by the Uniqlo store display at 546 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 USA. There you will see huge versions of three Santa models. The display is based on Santa models by Edwin Corrie, Noriko Nagata, and Brian K. Webb (me).

The project was put together and installed by Mona Kim.
http://monakimprojects.com

There are a few pictures of the display on my Flickr site.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bkwebb/5237424883/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bkwebb/5237424613/

Origami Site Update 2009–10 New Models

It’s been over a year and a half since my last update to my origami site. Since that time I’ve come up with over a dozen new models. Narwhal, Walrus, Elephant Seal, Turkey, Zeppelin, Dollar Pyramid and Sphinx, several Tessellations, Color Change Stellated Octahedron, Great Dodecahedron, Sphere, and more! So here you go. Enjoy!

Again With the Turkeys

Let’s see … a few things. Yesterday was our big deadline at work, the release of v2.2 of out software. We almost made it, but our QA guy was hung up by our server going down all the time the last few days. Meanwhile the last bunch o’ weeks of working extra hours while trying to keep everything else going have caught up to me and I was kinda under the weather yesterday. I’ve been watching some Galactica to unwind a few nights over the last few weeks, TV as a sedative. Everyone says BSG is awesome, but I’m not so sure. For one thing, it’s very dark, gloomy and humorless. Not very entertaining in the sense of providing entertainment. Second, EJO is great as Adama, but the only character with any personality in the whole show is Starbuck. Everyone else is just in the situation, and pretty dark and gloomy and humorless about it. Third the pacing is very slow, like a soap opera. A lot of inconsequential stuff happens every episode, and some of it moves the Big Plot forward a degree or two. Lastly, the genius scientist and his imaginary Cylon girlfriend are just too much! Still the thing is strangely compelling, and I expect I’ll be making my way thru the series just to see what happens.

The big thing we accomplished around the house last week was to paint the ceilings downstairs. They kinda did a crappy job when they built the house and it always bothered me, but it sometimes takes a while to get around to things. It’s a big room that includes my studio and our family room and Jeannie’s office (the size of all 3 bedrooms plus the hall and bathrooms and part of the kitchen), and it was a big job. We started Friday night and did most of the rest Saturday night, and finished Sunday afternoon. It’s the only way to fit in a big job like that. And of course that’s probably part of the reason I’m so burnt out right now. Still, we’ve been meaning to get around to it for a long time, and it’s much better than it was before. Cross another item off our hydra-headed todo list.

But you came here to read about turkeys, and by that I mean origami turkeys. In between everything else, I taught my Turkey at the Origami USA Special Sessions Saturday at the museum. I get a lot of great feedback on this model. I taught it last spring, but decided to it again this fall because of the tie-in with Thanksgiving. And I’m happy to say it went over quite well. It was a good group and they all did great at the model. Including one kid about Lizzy’s age. Wow.

I hadn’t folded the model in about a year couldn’t really remember how it went. It’s a pretty complex model (probably over 100 steps once I diagram it). As luck would have it, Friday at work our servers crapped out so I had some downtime and was able to fold a few attempts and get as far as the base. When I taught the class they were all advanced folders and got the idea of free-form sculpting the details from the base, so that wasn’t a problem. Still it’s good to work it out and take it to the next level. Absolutely necessary for diagramming for a book. Along the way I got some of the previously improvised parts a bit more formalized too, particularly in the tail, so I feel a lot better about this model then I did before. The only thing left to work out now is the head. Now if I can only find the right paper I can make an exhibit quality version.

I had some time a the end of my session so I taught my Walrus. (I usually bring whatever new models I have to these things to see what people think of them, and there were some requests to teach this one.) This is the kind of model I really like. It’s only 20 or 30 steps, but communicates so much, and not being so hard, a much wider range of people respond to it. This one will definitely get into my book. The slate is already pretty full for my first book and most of the diagrams are drawn, but I guess there’s the potential for a follow up. I only wish diagramming didn’t take so long. Recently people have been sending me email asking to make youtube videos teaching my models. I guess I should be grateful they ask, but I have to tell them no. Boy, why doesn’t some one volunteer to help diagram for my book? I guess that’s why we need diagramming software. And so the circle of futility is complete.

Here’s a crease pattern for the Turkey Base. Probably not enough detail to figure out how to fold the final model, but enough for the basic layout. Hint: it’s a modified bird base.

Origami Great Dodecahedron

Way back in April I folded a Great Dodecahedron, posted the crease pattern, and promised pictures as soon as I got around to it…

Way back in April I folded a Great Dodecahedron, posted the crease pattern, and promised pictures as soon as I got around to it. Well I completed the model a long time ago, but only took pictures this weekend. I realized I haven’t updated my origami gallery in over a year, so I took photos of a bunch of models. Expect a major update to my origami gallery soon. But meanwhile, this shape deserves a special callout cuz it’s so cool.