ITO Tsuyoshi, KIYOMI Masashi, IMAHORI Shinji, UEHARA Ryuhei
IPSJ SIG Notes, 2009(9) 1-8, Jan 23, 2009
We introduce a new origami problem about pleats foldings. For a given assignment of n creases of mountains and valleys, we make a strip of paper well-creased according to the assignment at regular intervals. We assume that (1) paper has 0 thickness and some layers beneath a crease can be folded simultaneously, (2) each folded state is flat, (3) each crease remembers its last folded state made at the crease, and (4) the paper is rigid except at the n given creases. On this model, we aim to find efficient ways of folding a given mountain-valley assignment. We call this problem unit folding problem for general patterns, and pleats folding problem when the mountain-valley assignment is "MV MV MV…." The complexity is measured by the number of foldings and the cost of unfoldings is ignored. Trivially, we have an upper bound n and a lower bound log(n+1). We first give some nontrivial upper bounds: (a) any mountain-valley assignment can be made by 「n/2」+「log(n+1)」 foldings, and (b) a pleats folding can be made by O(n^ε) foldings for any ε>0. Next, we also give a nontrivial lower bound: (c) almost all mountain-valley assignments require Ω(n/(log n)) foldings. The results (b) and (c) imply that a pleats folding is easy in the unit folding problem.