Origami is the Japanese name for the art of folding uncut sheets of paper into interesting and/or decorative shapes. The craft is hundreds of years old in Japan as well as in other parts of the world, but it has undergone a rebirth within the last 50 years as artists developed new figures. Some of the most exciting work has been done just in the last few decades, as scientists and engineers have developed the underlying mathematics that define what is possible within the strict rules of origami: one sheet, no cuts.
 
I have been an avid practitioner of origami for some 37 years. Since the early 1990s, I've been part of the movement called "technical folding," or "origami sekkei," which has focused on developing the techniques of origami design that allow us to specify exactly what shape we wish to bring forth from the paper. It turns out that the creases needed to fold a given origami form can be described by a complicated set of equations. Several years ago, I began writing a computer program, called TreeMaker, that solved these equations, and could therefore compute the crease pattern for extremely complicated folds.
 
On The Screen Savers, I'll show my program, TreeMaker, and some of the origami figures that TreeMaker and the associated mathematical theory have allowed me to compose and fold. For more information about TreeMaker, the mathematics of origami, and applications of mathematical origami to real-world scientific problems ranging from airbags to telescopes, please visit my website: http://www.langorigami.com.

Featured origami software by Robert Lang:
TreeMaker: http://origami.kvi.nl/programs/treemaker/index.htm
Reference Finder: http://origami.kvi.nl/programs/reffind/index.htm