* Computer graphics. ... animate your characters ... skeletons as foldable objects
* Mechanics: A lot of the early folding work is in like 17, 1800s, and is motivated by building mechanical linkages to do useful things.
* Manufacturing: if you could get them to fold objects (ex: CPUs), then you could manufacture 3D nano-scale objects.
* Optics. A MIT group does some optical devices through folding
* Medical: folding a stent really small, do non-intrusive heart surgery. Drug delivery.
* Aero-astro. fold things within space shuttles
* Biology. Big one: protein folding
* Sculpture: origami.
* Interactive buildings' architecture: reconfigurable buildings. Hoberman is one example of somebody exploring this, getting the building to fold from one shape to another, or getting your shades to fold from one shape to another, all sorts of things.
Well he doesn't discuss parachutes... What would be an improvement in this case? I guess one could came up with a smaller parachute if it was optimally folded.
Psychologically I suspect I would feel safer with a regular size parachute vs a super advanced, algorithmically folded origami-parachute :-p
I never got as far as folding my own parachute, but I know they have to be folded somehow, and if it doesn't unfold properly, you die (modulo the reserve). So I'd speculate optimization could have a role in reliability. My memory is hazy, but I may have been told that the method of folding also affects how abruptly and with how much shock it opens.
* Robotics is a big one, folding robotic arms.
* Computer graphics. ... animate your characters ... skeletons as foldable objects
* Mechanics: A lot of the early folding work is in like 17, 1800s, and is motivated by building mechanical linkages to do useful things.
* Manufacturing: if you could get them to fold objects (ex: CPUs), then you could manufacture 3D nano-scale objects.
* Optics. A MIT group does some optical devices through folding
* Medical: folding a stent really small, do non-intrusive heart surgery. Drug delivery.
* Aero-astro. fold things within space shuttles
* Biology. Big one: protein folding
* Sculpture: origami.
* Interactive buildings' architecture: reconfigurable buildings. Hoberman is one example of somebody exploring this, getting the building to fold from one shape to another, or getting your shades to fold from one shape to another, all sorts of things.