Here at Michigan State, just heard a dazzling talk by this dude: Robert J. Lang, a former physicist now a fulltime origami artist. Wow. He and other math whizzes have demystifed the mystical art, broken it down into computer models and equations, and can now literally program complex origami structures and designs: Give the computer a shape (say, a deer) and it will give you the crease pattern needed to produce it.
Here are two of his works, an Irish Elk and a Golden Eagle, and I greatly encourage you to visit his website to see many more:
Talk about a “two cultures” merger….
May 29th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
The bird works better. The antlered guy has too many visible folds and pieces to be beautiful.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Oooo – thanks for the link.
Is it dry or wet origami?
May 29th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
It was such a cool talk! And by far one of the more interesting today. Glad to see this post about it.
*waves* Hi, I’m the grad student with the over-sized laptop near the front of the room…
May 29th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
That sounds insanely cool