Origami guru: An augmented reality application to assist paper folding

Abstract

Origami folders often find themselves unable to recall the entire sequences of foldings, and origami drill books have been the only resources for them to learn to fold. However, many people have difficulties understanding symbols and operations in drill books. The purpose of this research is to design and develop a mobile augmented reality application that acts as a technological aid to origami folders. Extensive user studies have been employed at every step of the implementation. The application recognizes the current state/shape of the paper and instantly overlays the diagrams and instructions of the next step(s) on the real paper through the smartphone’s camera view. Evaluation results show that the application can successfully assist folders most of the time, and the qualitative mean score is about the same level of most mobile applications. This work will benefit a lot of origami practitioners such as those in geometry classes and intellectual development classes. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.