Eric Demaine is one of the better intersections of origami and mathematics, you should also read up on Dr Robert Lang, the OG and perhaps the most famous American JPL-physicist-turned-origamist: https://langorigami.com/
On the flip side the late Eric Joisel created perhaps the most amazing curved-crease and natural folding that we’ll ever see, his works were truly amazing art: https://ericjoisel.fr/en/home/
jmspring 14 hours ago [-]
Looking at Lang's site, yes it is a super niche area, but there is a lot of self promotion - books, events, etc. I was first introduced to the general area of curved crease, etc was with David Huffman in the early 90s. He started that work in the early 70s. So, Lang proclaims to the the first, but salesmanship is important.
I bought Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form by Paul Jackson on a whim several years ago and found it fun to work through. I think he has a new edition and some other books but I don't have any experience with them.
colechristensen 8 hours ago [-]
I bought a few origami books on impulse today, Folding Techniques for Designers was among them so that's a good validation. I've vaguely wanted to make a fancy folded paper lamp for a while and seeing this on HN crystalized that desire into at least buying a handful of books. Thanks for the reference!
srean 15 hours ago [-]
Curved creases aside, the fact that folding a piece of paper gives you a straight line is itself quite amazing and deep.
Even if I couldn't trust a cheap ruler, a straight edge is a piece of paper away.
ndileas 12 hours ago [-]
One of the underappreciated causes and effects of the industrial revolution is the precision that's around us all the time. To make that piece of paper required thousands of precision surfaces, rollers, etc.
Cerium 11 hours ago [-]
And oh how we take it for granted. I recently spent a few minutes trying to make sense of a situation where I was using a corner of a paper for a square. It turned out the piece of paper was not at all square, at least a quarter of an inch out of square!
bigiain 10 hours ago [-]
One important lesson I remember from high school woodworking class ~45 years ago - when using a set square, make your markings twice with the square flipped over in the opposite direction, so if the square isn't accurate you'll get two distinct markings - and for most wood working purposes just splitting the difference by eye will be accurate enough.
titanomachy 11 hours ago [-]
But folding any piece of paper will give you a straight line, no?
ndileas 9 hours ago [-]
Sure, this would probably work with nice handmade paper. But you won't necessarily get a clean fold with thicker or uneven paper, and depending on fiber length and distribution you might get waviness or other issues
chabska 8 hours ago [-]
traditional chinese paper making is way simpler than that, and produces quite reasonably flat papers.
maomaomiumiu 55 minutes ago [-]
Wow, I never realized you could create such intricate and beautiful structures with origami. This is seriously impressive work!
TheCoreh 16 hours ago [-]
These remind me of the Elliptic Curve pieces from another post on the HN front page right now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44315321) I wonder if the poster was inspired by that one to also post these here?
Anyway, these are pretty cool/unique looking! I hadn't seen curved origami like this before.
wonger_ 14 hours ago [-]
Actually I was just pruning old bookmarks, and thought people would find this origami interesting. I hadn't seen the elliptic curves post -- thanks!
boulos 14 hours ago [-]
For folks interested in folding and origami, the documentary Between the Folds was excellent. I don't know if anyone recorded a Q&A when it did the film festival circuit, but if you could find one, it'd be worth watching.
This duo must have the most fun job in all academia.
talkingtab 15 hours ago [-]
The force from curved folds can be used in other ways. If you score a sheet of copper in a curved line, then fold it along the score you get a twisted form. If you have some poster board handy you can use the same technique as well. Vessels!
bdbenton5255 11 hours ago [-]
Wonderful, a nice meeting place between modern and classical art. Arguably one of the most alluring features of classical art is the complexity and intricacy of detail.
davidpfarrell 9 hours ago [-]
I don't know what I expected to see, but the site was full of ... Curved-Crease Sculptures ...
Beautiful just the same!
kazinator 16 hours ago [-]
> There is a surprisingly old history to curved-crease sculpture, going back to the 1920s at the Bauhaus.
That's surprisingly recent.
wiz21c 4 hours ago [-]
Now let's ask our not-yet-AGI robots to fold origami and we will see how far they go...
boxboxbox4 19 hours ago [-]
[dead]
boxboxbox4 16 hours ago [-]
[dead]
ForrestN 16 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
14 hours ago [-]
mrybczyn 14 hours ago [-]
well, it's no banana duct taped to a canvas, that's for sure...
On the flip side the late Eric Joisel created perhaps the most amazing curved-crease and natural folding that we’ll ever see, his works were truly amazing art: https://ericjoisel.fr/en/home/
Eric himself reconstructs some of huffman's work - https://erikdemaine.org/papers/Huffman_Origami5/paper.pdf
It's an interesting area.
It looks like there's a more recent series as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4-cftqTcdI
https://www.leklint.com/collections/pendants/products/le-kli...
https://www.ikea.com/ma/en/p/krusning-pendant-lamp-shade-whi...
https://www.leklint.com/blogs/stories/3daysofdesign-2025
An old promo showing some of the techniques they use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3T_il3Qphc
Which comes as a kit you put together (keep som clear packing tape handy... it can crack if folded to hard... lol)
I bought Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form by Paul Jackson on a whim several years ago and found it fun to work through. I think he has a new edition and some other books but I don't have any experience with them.
Even if I couldn't trust a cheap ruler, a straight edge is a piece of paper away.
Anyway, these are pretty cool/unique looking! I hadn't seen curved origami like this before.
Beautiful just the same!
That's surprisingly recent.