The Origami Forum

I'm working on a blog for models. Right now I'm creating different categories to tell apart the various models. Thinking a little about it I can see there's many different ways of classifying models, depending on the criteria used.

Would you help me think of different criteria for classifying models? In what ways can origami models be divided?

I don't know if my question ended up being a little confusing... I hope not .

Difficulty (simple, low-intermediate, intermediate, high intermediate, complex)
Type(Action, representational, tessellation, modular)
And What it is (Animal, human, insects, etc.)

Gerardo wrote:I'm working on a blog for models. Right now I'm creating different categories to tell apart the various models. Thinking a little about it I can see there's many different ways of classifying models, depending on the criteria used.

Would you help me think of different criteria for classifying models? In what ways can origami models be divided?

Well, your question ended up being...not confusing, but too vague to be answerable. Are you looking for categories of subject matter (e.g., "Animals," "Plants," "Vehicles," "Man-made Objects," "Tesselations")? Are you looking for categories of folding type (e.g., "Folded From Squares," "Folded From Rectangles," "Compound Origami")? Are you looking for historical periods (e.g., "Traditional," "1960s-1970s")? Are you looking for folding philosophies (e.g., "Mathematical Folding," "Pureland," "Box Pleating")?

Or easy, intermediate, complex, etc?

Thanks for all your answers. That was I wanted to find out; this is really helping the blog project! A question for any member: can you think of any other classifying criteria besides the ones already mentioned ?

dinogami wrote:Are you looking for categories of folding type (e.g., "Folded From Squares," "Folded From Rectangles," "Compound Origami")? Are you looking for folding philosophies (e.g., "Mathematical Folding," "Pureland," "Box Pleating")?

Whats the difference between folding types and folding philosophies? Thanks in advance!

Another VERY IMPORTANT question: how do you define the level of complexity of a model (Simple, Low, Medium, and High Intermediate, Complex and Super Complex for example)? What do you take into account to declare that a particular model's complexity level is undeniably x?

A complex question ?

Gerardo wrote:Whats the difference between folding types and folding philosophies? Thanks in advance!

Probably not the best terms on my part! By "types," I meant broad categories, like "compound origami" (models made from more than one piece of paper) vs. traditional, single-piece models. By "philosophies," I meant basic approaches to model design. For example, pureland folding means using only mountain and valley folds, regardless of paper shape or number of pieces; mathematical folding means that the model was designed to demonstrate and use a particular mathematical concept, again regardless of paper shape or number of pieces. I'm all open to better descriptive terms!

Gerardo wrote:A complex question ?

One which makes little sense beyond broad and somewhat loosely defined categories - there are different skills involved in folding, trying to sum it all up in a single level or number or whatever does not work too well. There may be a few objective measurable parts to a folding process such as "number of petal-folds", but overall it gives you little to no insight into the true complexity of a model.

To give you an example : In terms of structure, Joisel's dwarf is much simpler than SK's ancient dragon, yet you'll see almost only botched jobs for the former and quite a few good ones of the latter (along with those the dog had for breakfast)...

dinogami wrote:Probably not the best terms on my part! By "types," I meant broad categories, like "compound origami" (models made from more than one piece of paper) vs. traditional, single-piece models. By "philosophies," I meant basic approaches to model design. For example, pureland folding means using only mountain and valley folds, regardless of paper shape or number of pieces; mathematical folding means that the model was designed to demonstrate and use a particular mathematical concept, again regardless of paper shape or number of pieces. I'm all open to better descriptive terms!

Thanks dinogami! That helped a lot .

gachepapier wrote:One which makes little sense beyond broad and somewhat loosely defined categories - there are different skills involved in folding, trying to sum it all up in a single level or number or whatever does not work too well. There may be a few objective measurable parts to a folding process such as "number of petal-folds", but overall it gives you little to no insight into the true complexity of a model. To give you an example : In terms of structure, Joisel's dwarf is much simpler than SK's ancient dragon, yet you'll see almost only botched jobs for the former and quite a few good ones of the latter (along with those the dog had for breakfast)...

Thanks for your answer! So this would mean that when a creator declares the complexity level in the diagrams he or she is just sharing his or her believes in complexity and not really a measurement?

Gerardo wrote:Thanks for your answer! So this would mean that when a creator declares the complex level in the diagrams he's just sharing he's believes in complexity and not really a measurement?

That's a good question, and I don't have any sort of answer. "Complexity" is surely in the eye of the beholder. As gachepapier noted, "complexity" can involve anything from executing difficult individual moves in the course of folding a model to fine, detailed shaping (like in Joisel's dwarf). Many books these days give difficulty rankings to models in the books, but I often get the impression that those rankings apply only to models in the book--in other words, a "complex" or "four-star" (or whatever) model is "complex" only relative to, say a "simple" or "one-star" model in that book, but not with respect to models in some other book.

Many forum members here may be young enough that they have no experience in origami of a time when there weren't Lang, Kamiya, etc. models that today get "complex" and "super-complex" ratings. Models that were "complex" then, like those of Neal Elias, Fred Rohm, etc., might not warrant "complex" ratings today. Ratings, like any artificial hierarchical system, are arbitrary and unquantifiable. (This is also why bioscientists have abandoned the old Linnean rank system--kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, and the various intermediate ranks--these ranks are completely arbitrary and mean different things to different people, so they're ultimately useless.) There may be some utility to assigning difficulty rankings to models within a single book: to a novice picking up the book, such a system can provide him/her with an inherent order in which to tackle models within that book in order to increase his/her skills. But outside that book, the ranks would be meaningless, and should be acknowledged as such.

Thanks dinogami, that was very enlightening!

gachepapier wrote:One which makes little sense beyond broad and somewhat loosely defined categories - there are different skills involved in folding, trying to sum it all up in a single level or number or whatever does not work too well. There may be a few objective measurable parts to a folding process such as "number of petal-folds", but overall it gives you little to no insight into the true complexity of a model. To give you an example : In terms of structure, Joisel's dwarf is much simpler than SK's ancient dragon, yet you'll see almost only botched jobs for the former and quite a few good ones of the latter (along with those the dog had for breakfast)...

Gachepapier, do you completely agree with Dinogami? Would you add anything else:)?

Gerardo wrote:Gachepapier, do you completely agree with Dinogami? Would you add anything else:)?

Yes and no

One other thought on this subject (and, BTW, that's all any of my musings are intended to be--just thoughts!): "complexity" may be more useful a measurement to origami novices than to those with a great deal of experience. Upon seeing a series of models with ranks from "simple" to "complex," "one star" to "four stars," etc., the rankings are good indicators of both (a) a sequence in which to attempt folding the models in order to build his/her skills, and (b) that a particular model may entail some new kinds of folds and/or unusual variations of more traditional types of folds that might require the folder to learn something new or expand his/her perception of what a particular fold means (e.g., there are all sorts of variations on "rabbit ear," as per an older post somewhere in this forum). The ranking systems are really good for this kind of thing. But to an experienced folder, the rankings may be meaningless because s/he may be equally capable of folding all of them, though "complex" models may take longer simply by virtue of having more steps. But "complexity" and "length" are by no means mutually dependent...I could diagram a simple model in such a way that it has dozens of steps if I wanted, but that doesn't make it more complex! In short, "complexity" may be a concept that loses its meaning and effectiveness as a folder's experience increases.

dinogami wrote:In short, "complexity" may be a concept that loses its meaning and effectiveness as a folder's experience increases.

I agree, I even noticed that on growing experience more appealing appear to be the cleanness of the finished model than the series of difficult passages needed.
A different kind of "complexity"