Monday, October 03, 2005

Origami Tessellation freeware

My favorite new toy is Tess, an origami tesselation program generously shared by Eric Gjerde .
This little program does not install but runs in Windows ( I have XP home) from a gui.exe.
Do download the Documentation PDF but don't freak out like I did when I read the install instructions...they mention perl etc. The section after that is about running it from the gui which is so easy. Just click the gui.exe and Tess opens.
The patterns can be saved as postscript files which I opened with Illustrator. I've just begun playing but think that this will be useful for paper and quilting projects. Do visit the homepage and check out the gallery.
This is my first Tess.

I'm so happy! It's been a long time since I've found a fun, free art tool.

4 comments:

  1. Way cool! Makes me almost want to buy a PC.

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  2. Anonymous3:36 PM

    If you would just take your time to know your way around, you could discover a lot of premium products and services being offered for free.

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  3. If you know of any freeware programs that are useful for art or crafts.. please share. I've posted all the ones I know about.

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  4. I'm very glad that you found the windows version to be helpful! I always liked playing with Alex's software, but I got tired of doing the perl install and extra bits on any PC I decided to use it on- so I sat down and took some time to compile it as a standalone windows app. I'm quite glad that you can fiddle with the postscript files, as that really seems to be the big problem for most people.

    This application does run on the mac as well, but you do have to install some extra stuff to get it running- I've been meaning to make a standalone mac app version of it for a while, but it's been low on the priority list. That, and Alex Bateman is working on a newer version, so I think I'm waiting for that to come out.

    I should take a moment to mention that Alex (the author of this fine program) has a nice e-book of tessellation patterns you can buy for £3, which has some great photos and instructions on how to fold together the resulting origami tessellations.

    And, if I may make a small shameless plug, I have a website with a few free downloadable diagram / crease pattern sets, at www.origamitessellations.com. No fun software to play with, though!

    -Eric Gjerde

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