Origami reconstruction

Explore the two pictures

1. Choose a shape from the menu above. Purple points are punctures. Start with either bird, or the quadrilateral for a short, four-step example.
2. Hover over a dashed ray to preview a move, then click to reconstruct the next piece of the crease pattern. Red and blue rays offer different choices.
3. Play example follows a prepared sequence for the birds and quadrilateral. If you choose a different move, playback switches to Play random steps. The regular polygon uses random steps from the start. Pause at any time with Space.
4. Go back and try another choice using the arrows below the pictures. The slider revisits earlier steps. Reset returns to the start of the current example.

Look closer and experiment

Drag empty space to pan and scroll to zoom, independently in each picture. Fit views brings both pictures back into view.

Dual graph adds a blue graph to the left picture, with a vertex in each face and edges crossing the crease pattern. White and black vertices represent the two triangle types; other vertices show the parameters (k,n), with L indicating remaining punctures in that face.

Edit creates a separate copy of a built-in example. Drag vertices or adjust the number of punctures L. For polygons, n is the number of sides and k controls the folding pattern. Red dashed lines mark constraints that need fixing before playback.

Save / load stores examples in this browser or exports a JSON file to share. Settings adjusts speed, ray length, line thickness, and opacity.