A neat way to fold a sheet of paper

http://wheatpond.com/2012/02/22/miuraori.html

by emeltzer • 14 years ago

268 31 14 years ago

I wonder why this hasn't been a standard for maps for years. By far the most frustrating thing about road trips (pre-iPhone) used to be dragging out the map then trying to put it away again.

Also, as a total aside, this: "over their conventionally folded*" should be punishable by death. Putting an asterisk next to something then not explaining it is pure evil.

mjdwitt• 14 years ago

I'm just guessing, but it would make sense for large paper maps not to use this fold so that you can partially unfold it and look only at the portion in which your are currently interested, instead of having a giant unfolded piece of paper. This would be especially nice in a small car where you would lack room to move a completely unfolded map around.

bhickey• 14 years ago

Often times hiking maps are so large that you couldn't practically unfurl the whole map. In these cases it would be great if you could easily access individual map sections.

If you've ever had your map fall to pieces in the snow, you'll learn to appreciate tyvek maps.

gvb• 14 years ago

Traditional map folding allows you to reference a portion of the map without unfolding it entirely. When I realized this, I stopped hating the map folders.

Ref: http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/army_board_study_guide...

Pfiffer• 14 years ago

"Posted : Monday, January 01, 1900"

Interesting, Y2K must have hit pretty bad for them.

emeltzer3• 14 years ago

Actually, the same professor (Miura) who invented the fold I talked about in that note came up with another way of folding (that also involves binding part of the map) that does "reference a portion" much better than the traditional way manages. You can find it if you google for "Design of portable maps enabling longitudinal access" Miura, 2006

a_a_r_o_n• 14 years ago

"By far the most frustrating thing about road trips (pre-iPhone) used to be dragging out the map then trying to put it away again."

That's what the back seat is for. Younger people probably don't know that.

jjcm• 14 years ago

If you look at the kickstarter page, they state that it's because automated map folding works poorly for this folding method. I doubt that it's impossible, but it's a hurdle to overcome.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

I used to keep a local city map folded up this way in my backpack just in case I needed to go somewhere I hadn't been before or got lost biking, or somesuch, it was super useful.

However, the advent of smartphones has made that sort of thing less useful. And for serious wilderness navigation this kind of map folding is very unhelpful since maps tend to be big and it helps to keep the map partially folded so you can focus on one area.

emeltzer3• 14 years ago

Err, if you can issue me a pardon here, that was meant to be a footnote but I got the markdown wrong. The footnote should read: "By conventionally folded I mean folded first horizontally and then vertically such that each folded unit is rectangular."

redthrowaway3• 14 years ago

Not to worry; if you were the first to do it I wouldn't be upset. It's a staple of websites and textbooks that drives me mad.

leviathan• 14 years ago

"By far the most frustrating thing about road trips (pre-iPhone) used to be dragging out the map then trying to put it away again."

Even worse is trying to fold back the papers inside medication boxes. They never fold back to the state they were in.

redthrowaway3• 14 years ago

I thought those were like cotton wads: meant to be disposed of upon opening.

guylhem• 14 years ago

brillant! I'm eager to try that at work tomorrow for my todo list. I like it small (fitting in the pocket) but the way I fold it it quickly falls into pieces

jonah• 14 years ago

It was a bit tricky to fold cleanly on the first go for me.

I just tried it with US "Letter" paper (8.5 x 11) instead of the A/B size mentioned. To compensate for the different aspect ratio, I used 4x4 folds instead of 4x6. It worked out nicely.

aymeric• 14 years ago

Another neat way to fold a sheet of paper: http://pocketmod.com/

hahla• 14 years ago

This is amazing. Thank you!

pbhjpbhj• 14 years ago

It's turning a single sheet of paper in to a mini-book - they have an application for download that will convert a pdf in to "pocketmod" physical format. You basically concertina fold the page and make a couple of cuts.

loup-vaillant• 14 years ago

You just helped me much more that you could have guessed: see, they talked about agendas. And it just occurred to me that the folding method devised by the OP yields a 7×5 grid, which is exactly what I need to fit a month worth of agenda. The squares are relatively small, but they suit my needs.

So, an A4 sheet of paper is worth 2 months of agenda. 6 will last me a year.

I'm too lazy to buy an agenda, but now I have one. Thank you.

miles_matthias• 14 years ago

Has anyone implemented this digitally with CSS animations?

emeltzer3• 14 years ago

I'd be interested in seeing that. Someone did make it in Wolfram: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/MiuraMapFoldingAndUnfoldin...

raldi• 14 years ago

This company has been doing it for years: http://www.zcard.com/

mise• 14 years ago

I give up.

I wasn't able to get is into the compact folded shape. As far as I can tell, I have the correct folds, but I did some guessing to follow each step.

clux• 14 years ago

I found it more instructive to look at this for the last steps. http://library.thinkquest.org/28923/miuraori.html

I've tried 3 with different parallelogram angles. The higher you take this angle, the easier it is to fold, however, it's harder to mash together in the final step nicely. The end result also looks less neat if it's too high.

Argorak• 14 years ago

I am pretty sure that this is similar to how the german Falk plans do it for ages. Sadly, I cannot find any english explanations.

Update: its not. But if you are interested: patent (in german) with visual explanation can be found here:

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?loc...

dmn001• 14 years ago

Here is a video showing it clearly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71HTB8UXVII

And another guide (pdf): http://mars.wnec.edu/~thull/combgeom05/handout7.pdf

Link: http://www.britishorigami.info/academic/miura.php

Ted Talk (11m 35s): http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.h...

CountHackulus• 14 years ago

This is actually very similar to a method of doing tessellated origami with a grid of folds. [1] I wish I could find a picture of it, but I've got an origami tessellation I folded that has this same 1 degree of freedom that allows it to be folded and unfolded by pushing and pulling. Only difference, is that instead of going flat, it turns into a spiral when you compress it. Very similar to [2]. This all being based on the work of Taketoshi Nojima.

[1] http://spacesymmetrystructure.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/origa... [2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/53416300@N00/1028178660

bigethan• 14 years ago

This is the neatest map folding I've ever seen: http://www.thezoomablemap.com/the-map.html

JadeNB• 14 years ago

As a math teacher who's always on the lookout for cool geometric tricks for all levels, I'd love to be able to do this by hand. Does anyone have any advice for how to do this without a ruler? (For example, I don't even know how to fold a paper in 5ths, so I can't get past the very beginning.)

A neat way to fold a sheet of paper

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