Talking: More About Origami
November 20, 2007 · Filed Under Other
Origami originated in China a “Zhe Zhi”, Japanese name “Origami” when Akira Yoshizawa made new advancements, including wet-folding and the Yoshizawa-Randlett system of diagramming. In the 1960’s the art of origami began to spread out. fisrt with modular origami and then with various movements developing, including the kirikomi.
Paper and other materials
Although almost any similar material can be used for folding, the choice of material used greatly affects the folding and final look of the model.
Normal copy paper with weights of 70-90 g/m2 (19-24lb) can be used for simple folds, such as the crane and waterbomb. Heavier weight papers of 100 g/m2 (approx. 25lb) or more can be wet-folded. This technique allows for more rounded sculpting of the model, which becomes rigid and sturdy when it is dry.
Special origami paper, often also referred to as “kami” (Japanese for paper), is sold in prepackaged squares of various sizes ranging from 2.5 cm to 25 cm or more. It is commonly colored on one side and white on the other; however, dual coloured and patterned versions exist and can be used effectively for color changed models. Origami paper weights slightly less than copy paper, making it suitable for a wider range od models.
Washi is the predominant origami paper used in Japan. Washi is generally tougher than ordinary paper made from wood pulp, and is used in many traditional arts. Washi is commonly made using fibers from the bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (edgeworthia papyifera), or the paper mulberry but also can be made using bamboo, hemp, rice and wheat.
Artisan papers such as unryu, lokta, hanji, gampi, kozo, saa and abaca have long fibres and are often extremely strong. As these papers are floppy to start with, they are often backcoated or resized with methylcellulose or wheat paste before folding. Also, these papers are extremely thin and compressible, allowing for thin, narrowed limbs as in the case of insect models. Paper money from various countries are also popular to create origami with, called “Moneygami”. It is common to create the figure depicted on the note itself.
Origami doesn’t just cover still-lifes; origami can move in clever ways. Action origami includes origami that files, requires inflation to complete, or, when complete, utilizes the kinetic energy of your hands applied at a certain region on the models and transfers it through an internal mechanism to move another flap or limb. Strictly speaking only the latter is really “recognized” as action origami. Action origami, fisrt appearing with the traditional Japanese flapping bird, is quite common with Robert Lang’s instrumentalists; when the figures heads are pulled away from their bodies, their hands will move, resembling to play music.
Technical origami, also known as origami sekkei, is a field of origami that has developed almost hand-in-hand with the field of mathematical origami. In the early days of origami, development of new designs was largely a mix of trial-and error, luck and serendipity. With advances in origami mathematics however, the basic structure of new origami model can be theoretically plotted out on paper before any actual folding even occurs.
Paradoxically enough, when origami designers come up with a crease pattern for a new design, the majority of the smaller creases are relatively unimportant and added only towards the completion of the crease pattern. What is more important is the allocation of regions of the paper and how these are mapped to the structure of the object being designed. For a specific class of origami bases known as “uniaxial bases”, the pattern of allocations is referred to as the “circle-packing”. Using optimization algorithms, a circle-packing figure can be computed for any uniaxial base of arbitrary complexity. Once this figure is computed, the crease which are then used to obtain the base structure can be added. This is not a unique mathematical prosess, hence it is possible for two designs to have the same circle-packing, and yet different crease pattern structures.
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