Interlocked archimedean spirals for conversion of planar rigid panels into locally flexible panels with stiffness control

Abstract

We present a relief cutting method to turn rigid planar surfaces into flexible ones using meander patterns that consist of interlocked Archimedean spirals. We have developed an approach to obtain all possible such 2D meander patterns with a set of simple remeshing processes. Our algorithm can be applied to any polygonal mesh to produce 2D meander patterns. Since these meander patterns are obtained by remeshing processes, we can control the local properties of the pattern with intensity of images to obtain different stiffness values in different regions. This approach provides a simple interface to construct desired patterns.