zenoli.net

Here’s a geodesic sphere made from paper - the largest origami construction I’ve made so far. It’s made using a dirt-simple folding technique called ‘snapology‘, based on strips of paper rather than squares. To be precise, these images are of an isocehedral degree 5 type I geodesic. The first challenge in putting one of these together is getting the lengths of all the edges (the chord factors) correct. I used the GPL’d DOME package to calculate lengths, and then used a few Python scripts to generate printable SVG cut-and-fold designs for the strips. The second challenge is the insane amount of cutting and folding.

Unfortunately, the Applied Synergetics site (home of the DOME software) appears to have gone offline and is now being occupied by a squatter. Various repositories keep the package alive, as a bit of digging with Google will reveal. C. J. Fearnley has more about geodesic spheres in his excellent Buckminster Fuller FAQ.

Higher-quality images will follow at a later date; these were taken using a camera phone of inferior resolution.