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Top1. Introduction
Origami, which is a Japanese traditional handicraft work (Miyakawa, Sugita, Hosokawa, & Shibata, 2001), has a high rating abroad. In this study, we create the prototype of the 3D system with a smartphone that enables the user to experience origami easily and learn, the culture, by mobile devices.
Figure 1. Example of Japanese origami
There are many applications and websites focusing on Japanese origami (Miura & Yamaoto, 2013; Fujii & Kishi, 1997; Kitamura & Oka, 2011). However, most of them are the tutorial services that introduce how to make origami to the users on the devices such as smartphones, or they are sometimes the just a brief introduction of how to fold origami and the images of origami like a gallery (Miyazaki, Yasuda, Yokoi, & Toriwaki, 1994; Mizoguchiv & Mastubara, 2011).
However, origami is a play not only to fold and make a figure, but also to create steric models, such as a “Tsuru (crane)”. The most attractive point of origami is a characteristic to create steric figure from one paper. There are some other cultures that papers are cut and glued, which are similar to origami, in the world outside Japan. However, these are technically paper crafts. Japanese origami is different from those paper crafts. The most attractive point of origami is the fact that the steric figures are created from one paper (Figure 1).
Another point is the fact that origami is not a simple geometric figure but a complicated steric structure. The big interest in Japanese origami overseas focuses on the steric figure. Remarkable example is “Tsuru.” In this way, the most attractive point of origami is that they can create steric figures from one paper. This charm makes origami as one of the mysterious cultures for foreign people and expresses Japanese delicacy. From these reasons, it is not always true that the existing services can introduce appeal of origami properly enough. It is especially difficult to inform the user how to create origami well with the tutorial by using 2D images and pictures.
The authors have suggested and experimentally developed the smartphone application (app) that can express special origami in 3D by the combination of a mobile device and a tetrahedral reflector made of plastic material (Ogawa & Fujimoto, 2016). In this paper, we demonstrate this origami app, which the authors have presented in the previous study. The app is based on the system that enables 3D expressions easily by the combination of a mobile device and a tetrahedral plastic reflector (Ogawa & Fujimoto, 2017) Then, we increase the number of contents and enhance utility for this app.
Especially, in this study, we changed this app so that it can introduce the Japanese traditional origami culture more effectively by addition of many origami versions.
Top2. Background
2.1. Foreign People’s Interest in Japanese
Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) made a statement that the number of foreign tourists was about 20 million in 2015, with an increase of 47 over last year. This result shows that Japan has been attracting attention from overseas (Japan National Tourism Organization, 2016).
Speaking of a-decade-ago old-style Japanese sightseeing areas, these were Kyoto, Nara, Mt. Fuji, etc. However, in the present day, Japanese popular culture; for instance, Japanese restaurants (Izakaya) and Japanese noodles (Soba), receives more attention from foreign people (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 2016).
Chart 1 is the graph of what foreign tourists have hoped for the travel before coming to Japan. According to the Japan Tourism Agency, many foreign tourists travel to Japan for the purpose of experiencing Japanese pop culture, for example, “eating Japanese food,” “staying Japanese inn,” “experience of Japanese history and traditional culture” and “experience of Japanese daily life.” (Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 2016).