diagramming – nickorigami

Magic Rose Cube challenge

The Magic Rose Cube has been around for some time and is a stone-cold classic. There are several unauthorised videos and a superb official DVD produced by Michael & Richard at Origamido, but it has yet to be published outside of Japan. The challenge for me wasn’t folding it, but diagramming it! I had previously made diagrams, approved by creator Valerie Vann, for BOS issue 218 (February 2003) and when looking for ideas for “Action Origami”, it occurred to me I had a set of diagrams almost ready for use. So I approached Valerie again for permission to publish, which she generously granted me.

If only my filing system was so organised. I ploughed through every backup disk & CD I had, with no luck. I realised it must have been on one of several hard drives that died on me just before (cough) backing up. So there was no option other than to start from scratch. As I did so, I realised that the new diagrams would be much better than the old ones (15 years of practise!) and it is proving a challenge, albeit an enjoyable one. I’ve just started on the final section, how to open & close it – wish me luck with these complex 3D steps! Here’s a page, before text is added….

Magic Rose Cube diagram in progress

I got a new style o-ee-o

I’m working on a project with the British Museum and we decided to try a new, simpler Illustrator style, without borders. Still a work in progress, but I like it. Adding the drop shadows to internal edges would be impractical for complex models though. Here’s part of a simple version of my crab….

As ever, bonus points if you get the musical pun 😉

A Labour of Love

Today’s task, Nick, should you choose to accept it, is to produce 3D assembly instructions for this delightful design by Denver Lawson. This diagrammer will self-destruct after 3 units….

Leafed Octahedral Skeleton by Denver Lawson (folded by Paula Versnick)

Going Dotty

Origami diagrams are a means of communication, using symbols rather than words. The symbol set used these days is largely the same, based on the set developed by Yoshizawa and Randlett in the 50’s. Like any language, variations (dialects?) have developed and new symbols have entered the set from time to time.

Since I am producing diagrams almost every day, I am constantly striving to find better ways of illustrating a given step. My style has developed over the years and one change I made a few years ago was to replace the old double line “crease and unfold” with a single line using hollow and solid arrowheads. This didn’t offer more information, but made the drawings cleaner.

More recently, I have begun to use the dotted line, in two ways. Firstly, to show where a flap is folded underneath a layer. Previously, I used a cut-off arrowhead, but this didn’t allow me to specify exactly where a point would finish up. My new technique is;

1) draw the line in its entirety
2) cut the line where it meets an edge, then convert the line to dots
3) add an arrow-head at the end

Secondly, I have used dots to help make folds that have no obvious location points. Traditionally, the reader is supposed to look ahead at the next drawing to work out where to fold to. For example, here I am making a precrease for a reverse fold. The sequence is;

1) Draw dotted lines to match the edges that will be reversed (shown here slightly offset so you can see them).

2) Use the reflect tool, select the lower point as the point of reflection, then flip the shape over.

3) Add the arrows (using my current fold and return style).

The result is an accurate illustration of where the paper will go, allowing the reader to make use of any reference points they can. Another bonus is that when the reverse has been made, you can quickly convert the dotted line into the reversed paper without having to redraw it.

Repeat behind?

For some years I’ve been using a symbol for “repeat behind” which has been pointed out to me is non-standard! It’s a fold behind arrow with a dash through it (and optionally, as shown right) which steps to repeat).

I’m not sure where my use of this symbol it came from, but I’d be very interested to know how other diagrammers tackle this thorny issue?

I’m also torn on the fold/unfold. For years I used a line going to the location then returning. more recently, I’ve adopted the single line with solid/hollow arrowheads.

fold unfold This then leaves the issue of where you fold/unfold and it doesn’t matter which way, such as an initial diagonal. Here, both arrowheads are conventionally solid. Is this wasting a symbol and possibly adding an extra level of confusion? Should I always use “one end hollow”?

I’m losing sleep on this – your thoughts welcomed!

Learning Skills?

I was chatting with my mate Yawn Beworn the other day about the best way to learn origami. One to one teaching came out top, but that’s not always possible or practical for would-be folders. We’ve used diagrams for many years and the trend has been that they get better and better (check out Rikki Donachie’s work in the book by the late Rick Beech, “Origami You Can Use”). In terms of sheer efficiency, a good set of diagrams takes some beating, yet people still struggle sometimes to follow them.

The advent of cheap digital cameras with video facilities has opened a huge new world of opportunity for origami instructions. At their worst, they can be pretty useless, but at their best, have to be about the best practical way to illustrate the folding sequence for a given design. They are cheap and easy to produce and as long as you get the lighting, angle and focus correct, plus a clear, audible commentary. A cursory tour of youtube shows the crazy amount on offer (though most are far from brilliant), with the added bonus that some are by people with real ability, such as Eric Gjerde showing how to do a Fujimoto triangular crease pattern – is this the best way to learn these days?

Those tricky 3D steps

Anyone who has tried making diagrams will at some stage have reached a point where the model is either 3D, or just too “different” to copy, paste and edit. These steps must be drawn from scratch. Various techniques are out there, but for many years I’ve taken photos of the steps and drawn around them in Illustrator.

This, of course, has meant a) taking the photo b) putting the memory card in the computer and c) dragging the image onto the workspace for tracing. Not a hugely onerous task, unless you have to do it often (as authors do!)

My latest brainwave is to open my webcam “capture” software, use the webcam to frame the photo, then I press “print screen” to copy the entire screen to memory. I can then choose “paste” within Illustrator and the image of the screen appears for tracing. Resolution is low, but it’s perfectly adequate for my purposes. Much quicker and no faffing with either the camera or memory card.

diagramming 3D steps

People often ask me; “Nick, how come your 3D steps are so magnificently rendered?”. The answer is simple – I take a photo and trace over it within my drawing package, Illustrator. The beauty is that it doesn’t matter how out of focus your image is 😉

It’s fascinating how, having done this, I frequently feel the need to adjust corners and angles from the reality of a photo to where I think they look best, or clearest. Folded models rarely stay exactly where you want them, so this kind of extrapolation is often required. Here’s an example, showing the final module required to buld the designs in the previous post.

tracing technique

diagrams : create an "A" rectangle

Here’s the first of an ongoing series of diagramming tips, assuming you’re using a computer to produce them. They will all be specific to Adobe Illustrator, but the principles should apply to any drawing package. In the UK & Europe, we do a lot of folding from A4. Rather than creating a rectangle of the correct dimensions by typing them in, here’s a method that uses the properties of A rectangles to find the appropriate length. The property in question being that the length of an A rectangle is the same as the diagonal of the largest enclosed square.

1) Create a square and duplicate it
2) Rotate the duplicate 45 degrees (grab a corner, hold shift to constrain angles and drag to rotate)
3) Expand the width of the original square so it touches the corner of the rotated square
4) Delete the rotated square.

Once you have the shape, you can add it to a library for future reference. In Illustrator, these are called “symbols”.

nickorigami

my business is folding

Category Archives: diagramming