Projection Mapping Turns Folded Paper Into an Ever-Shifting Art Installation
By tracing out the vertices of origami pyramids stuck to a wall, artist Joanie Lemercier creates a captivating light show.
Artist Joanie Lemercier has penned a guide on turning folded paper into a captivating piece of wall art — with clever computational projection mapping providing an ever-shifting light pattern following its lines.
"I’ve been doing creative workshops with kids and schools for years (with 8-10 years old) and this can be an easy and creative activity to do at home," Lemercier explains of the project, based on a series of installations dubbed Paper and Light. "All you need to make the sculpture is paper, tape, and a bit of time. For the mapping part, you’ll need a projector and computer to animate your origamis with light."
The art itself is nothing more than folded paper, shaped as pyramids of varying sizes. These are attached to a wall to create an array of angular hills and valleys, shaded on each side according to the direction of the light which hits them — and it's directed light that forms the second part of the installation.
"In order to [implement] the principle of projection mapping, I slightly modified the code from Method Draw, a tool developed by Mark MacKay. It works in any computer and browser," Lemercier explains. "Make sure the projection area covers the origami. Open the mapping tool in a browser. Trace the edges. Repeat until the entire structure is mapped."
While some projection mapping projects use a depth-sensing camera to automate the process, or a traditional two-dimensional camera with a computer vision algorithm, Lemercier's approach is manual — but no less effective. Once the vertices of the sculpture have been mapped, the program can be switched into animation mode — using shader code from Patricio Gonzalez Vivo to illuminate the lines in an ever-shifting pattern.
The project is documented in full on Instructables, while the in-browser mapping tool is available on Lemercier's website.