Paper by Erik D. Demaine

Reference:
Lily Chung, Erik D. Demaine, Jenny Diomidova, Tonan Kamata, Jayson Lynch, Ryuhei Uehara, and Hanyu Alice Zhang, “All Polyhedral Manifolds are Connected by a 2-Step Refolding”, Journal of Information Processing, volume 33, 2025, pages 981–989.
BibTeX
@Article{RefoldingUniversal_JIP,
  AUTHOR        = {Lily Chung and Erik D. Demaine and Jenny Diomidova and Tonan Kamata and Jayson Lynch and Ryuhei Uehara and Hanyu Alice Zhang},
  TITLE         = {All Polyhedral Manifolds are Connected by a 2-Step Refolding},
  JOURNAL       = {Journal of Information Processing},
  journalurl    = {http://www.ipsj.or.jp/english/jip/},
  VOLUME        = 33,
  YEAR          = 2025,
  PAGES         = {981--989},

  length        = {10 pages},
  withstudent   = 1,
  doi           = {https://dx.doi.org/10.2197/ipsjjip.33.981},
  dblp          = {https://dblp.org/rec/journals/jip/ChungDDKLUZ25},
  comments      = {This paper is also available from <A HREF="https://doi.org/10.2197/IPSJJIP.33.981">J-STAGE</A> and as <A HREF="https://arXiv.org/abs/2412.02174">arXiv:2412.02174</A>.},
}

Abstract:
We prove that, for any two polyhedral manifolds 𝒫, 𝒬, there is a polyhedral manifold ℐ such that 𝒫, ℐ share a common unfolding and ℐ, 𝒬 share a common unfolding. In other words, we can unfold 𝒫, refold (glue) that unfolding into ℐ, unfold ℐ, and then refold into 𝒬. Furthermore, if 𝒫, 𝒬 have no boundary and can be embedded in 3D (without self-intersection), then so does ℐ. These results generalize to n given manifolds 𝒫1, 𝒫2, …, 𝒫n; they all have a common unfolding with the same intermediate manifold ℐ. Allowing more than two unfold/refold steps, we obtain stronger results for two special cases: for doubly covered convex planar polygons, we achieve that all intermediate polyhedra are planar; and for tree-shaped polycubes, we achieve that all intermediate polyhedra are tree-shaped polycubes.

Comments:
This paper is also available from J-STAGE and as arXiv:2412.02174.

Length:
The paper is 10 pages.

Availability:
The paper is available in PDF (2116k).
See information on file formats.
[Google Scholar search]


See also other papers by Erik Demaine.
These pages are generated automagically from a BibTeX file.
Last updated January 22, 2026 by Erik Demaine.