Disclaimer: This is a personal document -written by former VMware employee Eric Tung- and is not official or endorsed by VMware. Feedback and suggestions are welcome.
Warning: Origami ahead.
Things To Know
This is a somewhat difficult model to get right because of the relative precision required to make the final result look good -- we are folding a very specific shape, with very specific ratios. While no individual step should be difficult, don't expect to get it really right the first time or without a bunch of tweaking. The majority of steps do not fold flat, so this is not a good candidate for making a few folds and sticking in your notebook, it's better to finish it in one sitting. The final model is flat.
Paper Requirements
There is a wide range of thicknesses in this model, so normal paper is not suitable. In fact, normal origami paper (that you might get at any craft store) is not suitable; it does not hold creases well enough across the thicknesses that occur in this model. I highly suggest using foil paper since it holds folds well. This is also a duo-colored model, and involves the ratio 1:15, so 15 cm (5 7/8 inch) duo foil paper like Yasutomo Fold'Ems is good and should be relatively easy to find. If you can't, then single-sided foil is preferable to normal duo paper - white is a bit of a boring secondary color, but strength is more important than having the right colors.
If you haven't used foil paper before, be warned that it is trickier than normal paper because every fold shows up permanently. Practice to avoid extraneous folds.
Time Estimate
Budget at least half an hour.
Instructions
Note the forum software scales down large images. A larger image (1000x2000) can be obtained by opening the image in a new window (or looking at the source and pulling out the URL). At the time of this writing, the link is http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/1822/Instructions.png (but this may not be permanent).
Warning: Origami geekery ahead.
About the Model
The Fusion icon is pretty simple, from an origami point of view - two long legs and two short ones, which suggests a thinned fish base. The color change was a happy coincidence that happened to work out. Since the short legs are very short relative to the long ones, a simpler model may be possible, though maintaining the color change may be hard. The 1:15 ratio in the second step was determined by first coming up with an appropriate design, then figuring out the necessary proportions.
This image is from the Library window, units are pixels. Considering just the blue half of the icon, the length:tip-to-halfway-point ratio is 31:447, or approximately 1:14.4. This measurement is of a different ratio than shown in in step 2, but it's easy to show that math works out such that the ratio is the same. Taking into account imperfect folding (some length will be lost due to paper thickness, it's not possible/practical to fold that precisely, etc.) and looking for an easy-to-use/remember number results in 1:15. However, I find erring on the thicker side (e.g. closer to 1:14 rather than 1:15) yields better results.
Crease Pattern
A crease pattern is what you get if you were to take the completed model and unfold it flat. Advanced folders can tell a lot by the crease pattern, and it is much more compact than writing out every step. In this image, I've added color (which is not part of crease patterns that I've seen) to show different parts of the model: black lines indicate the thinned fish base, red lines are used by the color change, blue lines are the final shaping, and yellow lines are the basic regions. Keep in mind this is a very rough pattern and does not take into account paper thickness; you couldn't laser cut it and expect it to fold.
Possible Improvements
If you look at the model the above instructions produce, you should notice that it's not symmetric - that is, if you flip it over, the color change on the long leg is not complete. This is because leaving it unchanged is necessary for the correct shape. It should be possible to make the model symmetric by widening the diagonal river, but I didn't think this benefit was worth the reduced finished model size:paper size ratio.
If you compare the origami Fusion icon to the actual one, you should immediately notice that the origami one is more angular since the outer corners are not rounded. One possible improvement is to change the ratio used in step 2 to produce thicker legs, then folding back the extra to shape the desired corners.
Of course, if you really look at the actual icon, the corners are not quite rounded in the way they are in this diagram - the center is pushed out from the inner corner, so the actual scaling factor would be approximately 1.6.
A more subtle difference is that some of the inner corners are rounded. I have not come up with a good solution to this; the previous technique does not work well because this is a concave corner, so folding paper away will not work unless you don't care about the folding flat property. I'm also inclined to say it's a small enough thing to not be worth bothering about.
A trivial improvement is to round the tips of the inner corners - I thought this would look strange since the rest of the model is angular, but if the previously mentioned improvements are made, this modification would make sense.
Selected Further Resources
http://chosetec.darkclan.net/origami/
edit by wila: restored the images from this link at archive.org
