6.

849 Problem Set 3 Erik Demaine

Joseph Bergeron February 28, 2017

Problem 3.1

Two-Sided Seam Placement

This question tries to expand on the question of (single sided) seam placements posed in
lecture. Let’s define a two-sided seam placement as two polygonal silhouettes, each
mirror images of eachother, and line segments (seams) on both polygons. The seams need
not necessarily mirror eachother, just the polygonal outlines. The two polygonal silhouettes
represent the outline of a flat-folded model when viewed from either side. Essentially, a
two-sided seam placement specifies how a flat-foldable model should look when viewed from
either side.

There are few questions we could pose here. The most obvious is this.

Which two-sided seam placements are possible to fold?

We can also relate this back to the original question about single-sided seam placements.
We can equivalently define a two-sided seam pattern as two single-sided seam placements
whose silhouettes are mirror images.

Given any two single-sided seam placements that could define a two-sided seam placement, is
the two-sided seam placement always foldable as long as its two single-sided seam placements
are?

Intuitively, I want to answer yes to this question. Consider the flat folded models for the two
component seam placements. On each model, choose an exposed edge of the original paper
(not necessarily an edge of the silhouette - an edge of the original, unfolded paper). If you
connect those two edges by a sufficiently long strip of paper, you can then potentially overlap
the two single-sided seam placements corectly, sandwiching the connecting strip inbetween
them, and potentially thinning it if needed through pleating. Unfolded, this would provide
a flat-foldable crease pattern for the specified two-sided seam placement.

Pretty clearly, the answer to the opposite question, can you fold a two-sided seam placement
one of whose sides is an unfoldable single-sided seam placement?, is false. If you could fold
this two sided-seam placement, you would necessarily be able to fold the single-sided seam
placement of both sides, by simply ignoring the other side.

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Problem 3.2

For my model, I used the Tess program to design a variation on the classic 4.8.8 tessellation,
using overlapping open-back twists. The crease pattern is below. The model flat folded
easily enough, although it’s generally tricky to collapse a tessellation from a printed CP,
since any imprecision (in your own precreasing) is very noticable and can result in messy
looking vertices. Copy paper also isn’t the greatest medium - the finished model would’ve
looked way nicer on some nice Elephant Hide, or maybe even glassine if you were super
careful with the folding ,.

Figure 1: Crease pattern for a 4.8.8 open-back twist tesselation.