Computational peeling art design

Abstract

Some artists peel citrus fruits into a variety of elegant 2D shapes, depicting animals, plants, and cartoons. It is a creative art form, called Citrus Peeling Art. This art form follows the conservation principle, i.e., each shape must be created using one entire peel. Central to this art is finding optimal cut lines so that the citruses can be cut and unfolded into the desired shapes. However, it is extremely difficult for users to imagine and generate cuts for their desired shapes. To this end, we present a computational method for citrus peeling art designs. Our key insight is that instead of solving the difficult cut generation problem, we map a designed input shape onto a citrus in an attempt to cover the entire citrus and use the mapped boundary to generate the cut paths. Sometimes, a mapped shape is unable to completely cover a citrus. Consequently, we have developed five customized ways of interaction that are used to rectify the input shape so that it is suitable for citrus peeling art. The mapping process and user interactions are iteratively conducted to satisfy a user's design intentions. A large number of experiments, including a formative user study, demonstrate the capability and practicability of our method for peeling art design and construction.