# Physicalization Inspired by Kirigami

Foroozan Daneshzand, Bhairavi Warke, Charles Perin, Sheelagh Carpendale

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Foroozan Daneshzand, Bhairavi Warke, Charles Perin, Sheelagh Carpendale. Physicalization Inspired by Kirigami. IEEE VIS 2020 Electronic Conference Proceedings, Oct 2020, Virtual, Unknown Region. hal-05514373

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# Physicalization Inspired by Kirigami

Foroozan Daneshzand *

Simon Fraser University

Bhairavi Warke†

Simon Fraser University

Charles Perin‡

University of Victoria

Sheelagh Carpendale§

Simon Fraser University

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: This physicalization shows global warming differences for four countries: Australia, United States, China, and Sweden. Weights can be placed to show the expansions related to the country's warming for a given date.</figcaption></figure>

## ABSTRACT

We leverage kirigami – Japanese paper cutting – to create new physicalizations. Kirigami has many attributes that can be used for data mapping, offering a wide design space for creating data physicalizations. Physicalizations that use kirigami can be paper-based and thus inexpensive. They also offer new opportunities for interacting with the physicalization. We describe how data can be mapped to the factors used in creating kirigami paper cuts and how simple interactions can be included with the physicalization. Physicalizations based on kirigami can be inexpensive, simple to laser cut, and offer some interaction possibilities that allow people to explore data physically.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Kirigami is a rich, complex Japanese tradition in paper cutting. In this paper we describe discuss some of the opportunities that emerge when mapping data to the different factors possible when using kirigami to design physicalizations. We are inspired by the growing evidence that people find physicalizations engaging [6], by the wealth of potential representational opportunities in kirigami, and by the possibility that some types of kirigami cuts offer for supporting non-technological interactions with data.

The physicalization in Figure 1 is of global warming. There are different states with which viewers can interact and read information. When the model is resting *flat* on the surface, the outer cut shape represents the line graph of the temperature data in 2012. This provides a general understanding of the temperature variations in each country and allows for comparison between multiple countries. The different rings can be *expanded* to depict the mean temperature for each country starting from 1962. This spatial expansion shows the variation for each country and enables reading for the temperatures. The viewer can touch, feel and see the gaps and volumes created by the cut lines. The model manipulated by adding appropriate measured weights for each country, showing the increase of the mean

temperature from 1962 to 2012. The weights differ in sizes and have been labelled to simplify the interaction.

## 2 KIRIGAMI BACKGROUND

For centuries, people have practiced kirigami ('kiru', cut; kami', paper) to transform sheets of paper into beautiful and complex two- and three-dimensional structures. Similar to the better-known art of origami, which refers to the folding of paper, kirigami consists of using cutting to create 2D and 3D designs [14]. The technique has enabled scientists and designers from many different fields to create structures of widely different scales, for example for the design of nanomaterials [11], in robotics [10] and in architecture [14].

## 3 RELATED WORK

Representing data through physical variables is an idea [4] that dates back thousands of years [4]. For example, in 4000 BC the Mesopotamian people used physicalizations in the form of clay tokens as an accounting aid to help them keep track of their goods. The token's size and shape were used to represent qualitative information [13], and the Incas in South America used Quipus, formed from multiple knotted strings, to encode data through factors such as the number of knots on a string, the position of knots relative to each other and to other strings, and the type of knot [1].

With the emergence of fabrication technologies, physicalization has recently risen in popularity [7]. Jansen et al. [6] compared a physicalization with an on-screen visualization, showing an improvement in information tasks. Claes and Vande Moere [3] showed that tangible interaction with data evokes various forms of engagement and encourages people to spend more time with data and to gain more and deeper insights compared to traditional public display media. Data physicalization has also been shown to contribute to self-reflection [2, 12].

Creating dynamic physicalizations has been a bigger challenge than building static physicalizations. Some physicalizations have movable parts that can be rearranged manually [6]. Some physicalizations use tokens, tiles, and legos which offer flexibility, and provide an accessible way of physicalizing data, especially for novices [5]. A new class of dynamic data physicalization uses swarm user interfaces [8] to create mobile data items [9].

## 4 THE CONCEPT

Kirigami offers a wealth of possibilities for developing data-to-visual mappings. Just a few examples are shown in In Figure 2.

<footnote>*e-mail: foroozan_daneshzand@sfu.ca</footnote>

<footnote>†e-mail: bhairavi WARKE@sfu.ca</footnote>

<footnote>‡e-mail: cperin@uvic.ca</footnote>

<footnote>§e-mail: sheelagh@sfu.ca</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: The two images on the left show different possible kirigami cuts. The two images on the right show the loop-based, elastic kirigami style we use in our examples.</figcaption></figure>

The left two images are two examples of thousands possible to create using kirigami. While we are intrigued in the great variety of options available, in this paper we are focusing on the stretchable, expandable opportunities offered by the style of kirigami that is based on looped, expandable cuts. These come from architectural explorations into the creation of light weight elastic spaces [14]. The two right most images in Figure 2 are examples that use this style of kirigami, that we refer to as loop-based, elastic kirigami.

# 5 PHYSICALIZING PANDEMIC DATA

Kirigami physicalizations can be made at different scales from room sized installations to small personal artifacts like jewelry.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: A room sized physicalization of COVID-19 pandemic data. The size of circles represent the population of countries. The marks on the floor show the expansion for each country at different dates.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: The same physicalization of COVID-19 pandemic data, tipped to reveal the expansion of rings.</figcaption></figure>

We illustrate kirigami physicalization using the example shown in Figures 3 and 4. The example is a room sized display that shows COVID-19 pandemic data from February 1st until April 1st, 2020. The circle sizes (diameters) represents the country's population of four countries (USA, China, Italy, Canada). The expansion size, as marked on the floor, represents the number of cases per 1 million population. The physicalization is designed to be cut from a thin, flexible, but resilient material such as aluminum. One can interact with this installation simply by grasping the inner ring of a country

and pulling it towards the date of interest. If one pulls all the countries to the same date, one can get a physical comparison for that point in time. This demonstrates one of the possible way in which kirigami physicalizations can support simple, slow, possibilities for interaction that can, as in this example, show the changing data over time.

# 6 CONCLUSION

Kirigami physicalizations are a versatile class of physicalizations that can be created at a very small scale like a very large scale, that is relatively low-cost to produce, and that offers intriguing potential for direct interaction. We have only started to explore the potential of kirigami physicalization. Next we will explore the large space of possibilities that this technique offers, both in terms of the physical variables that can be used to represent data and in terms of the flexibility it gives to designers.

# 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Thanks to Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and SMART Technologies.

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