ReferenceFinder: Find coordinates on a piece of paper with only folds

https://mutsuntsai.github.io/reference-finder/

by icwtyjj • 5 months ago

80 13 5 months ago

mutsuntsai.github.io

Ecco• 5 months ago

That is really cool. I wish it had an animated video to display the result, that'd be even easier to follow and therefore even more impressive.

Alifatisk• 5 months ago

Maybe possible with that DSL the YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown created?

vismit2000• 5 months ago

Manim

amelius• 5 months ago

Is this brute forcing, or is there more to it?

PowerElectronix3• 5 months ago

There's more to it. Origami as a calculation tool is more powerful than compass and straight edge.

CrazyStat2• 5 months ago

Is there? I followed the link[1] to the original author of the desktop software this web app is derived from, and he says:

To make a long story short, by the third generation of ReferenceFinder (written in 2003), I had incorporated all 7 of the Huzita-Justin Axioms of folding into the program, allowing it to potentially explore all possible folding sequences consisting of sequential alignments that each form a single crease in a square of paper. Of course, the family tree of such sequences grows explosively (or to be precise, exponentially); but the concomitant growth in the availability of computing horsepower has made it possible to explore a reasonable subset of that exponential family tree, and in effect, by pure brute force, find a close approximation to any arbitrary point or line within a unit square using a very small number of folds.

(emphasis added)

[1] https://langorigami.com/article/referencefinder/

JKCalhoun• 5 months ago

I enjoy when HN surfaces out-of-the-box type stuff like this. Very cool.

scoot• 5 months ago

“outside of the box”?

srean• 5 months ago

Folding is more powerful than ruler and compass constructions. One can do cube roots, angle trisections and more.

Coincidentally enough, I had mentioned straight edge and ruler constructions in a different thread a few minutes ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47112418

Related older thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45222882

analog8374• 5 months ago

Folding could be called a superset of measuring.

Measuring could be called a special case of folding (it's an accordian fold)

ReferenceFinder: Find coordinates on a piece of paper with only folds

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