foldable map of Itokawa, a cook's tour of the sausage factory Options

[chuckclark]

Not that I mean to compare Itokawa to a sausage, just to show you behind the scenes of making the map, along with the map itself, here, rather than continue to clog up the Hayabusa Return to Earth thread.
Here is the map itself, so far along as the pasting in of the mosaic has gone.
And here is are two shots of the folded up map, compared with the computer-made model. Note the arrow to one of the "ears." The first try of the map failed to capture the ear, so I replotted the boundary, as seen in the Tracing image.
All photos credit: Sara Adkins Studio

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[chuckclark]

Here's the last taping and folding sequence. The middle panels are marking the template for more seam slices at the ears (top) and at the nose (bottom). I'll reissue the main map with tabs and seam slices.
Note the small tool -- a length of piano wire with a loop at the end, a substitute for too-large fingers -- I'm using to apply back pressure for the tape to stick.


And here's the final model sequence. It's not a stunning success:

along the lower spine in particular, as well near several hinge-points, there are gaps; these, I think, are artifacts of the hyper-detailed model. This well-detailed surface is a wonderful part of the JAXA model, but the many rocks peppering the surface made it difficult to trace boundaries precisely. I'd have done better with a special-purpose model that smoothed out this scale of relief.

the big "hindquarter" rock (mentioned above) is not expressed;

extensive use of tape is overpowering the thin paper's ability to hold its shape, especially around the neck. This happened with Ida, too, so perhaps a couple of internal ribs are needed for Itokawa, too. Then again, Itokawa is perhaps an elementary representative of a class of objects (objects with concave curves, let's say, which would include Kleopatra) that may be foldable only in theory or in computer simulations. More complex members of this class would be things with holes, such as crania here's a few examples of CSNB-mapped crania (Very difficult to fold these things up.)

On the plus side, my fix of the unexpressed ear worked -- happy to learn how to go back in and refine the map edge -- although it's tiny size was almost too small to tape.

Overall, the starting map-size of 11x17 is too small for the taping method. I'll have to try Emily's cardstock-and-glue approach.

So, let's throw this tour wide-open -- anyone out there giving it a try? Post your folding results here!

Same photo credits: Sara Adkins Studio / C.Clark

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