Folding equilateral plane graphs

22nd International Symposium, ISAAC 2011, Yokohama, Japan, December 5-8, 2011. ProceedingsWe consider two types of folding applied to equilateral plane graph linkages. First, under continuous folding motions, we show how to reconfigure any linear equilateral tree (lying on a line) into a canonical configuration. By contrast, such reconfiguration is known to be impossible for linear (nonequilateral) trees and for (nonlinear) equilateral trees. Second, under instantaneous folding motions, we show that an equilateral plane graph has a noncrossing linear folded state if and only if it is bipartite. Not only is the equilateral constraint necessary for this result, but we show that it is strongly NP-complete to decide whether a (nonequilateral) plane graph has a linear folded state. Equivalently, we show strong NP-completeness of deciding whether an abstract metric polyhedral complex with one central vertex has a noncrossing flat folded state with a specified “outside region”. By contrast, the analogous problem for a polyhedral manifold with one central vertex (single-vertex origami) is only weakly NP-complete

Flat Foldings of Plane Graphs with Prescribed Angles and Edge Lengths

When can a plane graph with prescribed edge lengths and prescribed angles (from among $\{0,180^\circ, 360^\circ$\}) be folded flat to lie in an infinitesimally thin line, without crossings? This problem generalizes the classic theory of single-vertex flat origami with prescribed mountain-valley assignment, which corresponds to the case of a cycle graph. We characterize such flat-foldable plane graphs by two obviously necessary but also sufficient conditions, proving a conjecture made in 2001: the angles at each vertex should sum to $360^\circ$, and every face of the graph must itself be flat foldable. This characterization leads to a linear-time algorithm for testing flat foldability of plane graphs with prescribed edge lengths and angles, and a polynomial-time algorithm for counting the number of distinct folded states.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Folding equilateral plane graphs

We consider two types of folding applied to equilateral plane graph linkages. First, under continuous folding motions, we show how to reconfigure any linear equilateral tree (lying on a line) into a canonical configuration. By contrast, it is known that such reconfiguration is not always possible for linear (nonequilateral) trees and for (nonlinear) equilateral trees. Second, under instantaneous folding motions, we show that an equilateral plane graph has a noncrossing linear folded state if and only if it is bipartite. Furthermore, we show that the equilateral constraint is necessary for this result, by proving that it is strongly NP-complete to decide whether a (nonequilateral) plane graph has a linear folded state. Equivalently, we show strong NP-completeness of deciding whether an abstract metric polyhedral complex with one central vertex has a noncrossing flat folded state. By contrast, the analogous problem for a polyhedral manifold with one central vertex (single-vertex origami) is only weakly NP-complete. ©201