The Origami Forum

I think Bugfolder is Robert Lang himself, though I may be wrong (Pretty sure Robert's on the forum, though)

I meant when i create something TM calculates pattern in a very simple way and very weird - see top right picture.

In lang's designs there are only bisected triangles in the pattern. I want to do that way!

PauliusOrigami, the tool you need is in the Edit>Stub submenu. After you have built your initial pattern with large polygons (and built creases), you can add "stubs", which break up large polygons into smaller ones. You can do this by selecting individual polygons and choosing Edit>Stub>(various commands), or, you can choose "Triangulate Tree", which is sort of the equivalent of Google's "I feel luck" button; it will fully break up the tree into triangles (but since there's often more than one way to break up a given polygon, the algorithm might not choose the way you'd have preferred).

There is some description of stubs in the documentation, but you'll still probably have to play around with some examples to get a feel for it.

HTH,

Bugfolder

Thank You, this was the Answer!

>>> does anybody know how to permanently change the view settings?

I know that Robert is very busy, even though he sometimes has times to help

However, I'm sure he would be very happy to work with someone who can program and has time to help with the next version of Treemaker to fix problems and add new features.

- Hank Simon

However, I'm sure he would be very happy to work with someone who can program and has time to help with the next version of Treemaker to fix problems and add new features.

I don't have any plans to do more work on TreeMaker (if I was doing anything of the sort, I'd write a new program, "BoxMaker," to do box-pleating -- but I've got a bunch of book-work to occupy me for the indefinite future), but the source code is there on the website for anyone so inclined. It's reasonably well commented, i think. (But it's still 50,000 LoC.)

I've tried treemaker before, but I'm having lots of problem with it.
Actually, I don't understand what this means:there were nodes within a tree or a polygon was nonconvex, try selecting all unpinned edges or reoptimizing the scale. this is a common problem with many branched trees." or something like that, whenever i try to design an insect............
and it was also one of the reasons i turned to box-pleating.....

Actually, I don't understand what this means:there were nodes within a tree or a polygon was nonconvex...]

In order to construct molecules, all polygons need to be convex, and all nodes need to be part of at least one active polygon. If you have a "loose" node within an active polygon, the molecule construction is ill-defined, so you need to alter your tree in some way so that all nodes are part of polygons and all molecule polygons are convex.

In box-pleating, all of the packing polygons don't need to be convex, so in that regard, box-pleating is easier; but you have the potential problem of dense axial folds, so there is a tradeoff.

cowburger13 wrote:I am having some trouble with treemaker. I want to design a symmetric cp, and I even use the symmetry option, but treemaker still makes the cp completely unsymmetric. Can somebody help me? Thanks!
-Justin

As suggested already, I would recommend reading the help files and doing any tutorials you can find.

I'm not completely certain what your issue is, so here's what I've done.

I created a simple tree and gave the design book symmetry.
I've paired up all pairs using the Condition > 2 Nodes Paired About Symmetry Line option from the menu.


(You can click on the images to see a larger version on Flickr - I just didn't want to fill the post with large images.)

Assuming that's all you've done, when you come to Scale Everything, TreeMaker will run an algorithm to determine the most efficient arrangement of flaps and, keeping your conditions satisified, will move things around.



For me, and apparently for you, this result in a asymmetric crease pattern. Hopefully, however, you will see that the paired nodes are symmetric.

What you need to do now is apply conditions to the other nodes. If they lie in the center of the CP, choose Condition > Node(s) Fixed To Symmetry Line


(pos-e means that the nodes are aligned with the edge, pos-c means the corner, pos-s means the line of symmetry)

This will give you a symmetrical crease pattern - all paired nodes will be symmetrical and all others will be aligned to the line of symmetry.

If you have other requirements, like wanting a flap at the edge, for a colour change perhaps, you can set that as a condition, too.
The more conditions that you set, the fewer the options for TreeMaker and the less efficient the use of paper will be. I would also like to point out that regardless of how asymmetrical the crease pattern is, folding it should always result in the whatever arrangement of flaps that you have set up. Obviously, symmetry is more appealing and easier to deal with in most cases.

I may have missed that! Thank you so much!!!!