English

Unfolding Orthogonal Terrains

Computational Geometry 2007-07-12 v4

Abstract

It is shown that every orthogonal terrain, i.e., an orthogonal (right-angled) polyhedron based on a rectangle that meets every vertical line in a segment, has a grid unfolding: its surface may be unfolded to a single non-overlapping piece by cutting along grid edges defined by coordinate planes through every vertex.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0707.0610,
  title  = {Unfolding Orthogonal Terrains},
  author = {Joseph O'Rourke},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.0610},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

7 pages, 7 figures, 5 references. First revision adds Figure 7, and improves Figure 6. Second revision further improves Figure 7, and adds one clarifying sentence. Third corrects label in Figure 7. Fourth revision corrects a sentence in the conclusion about the class of shapes now known to be grid-unfoldable

R2 v1 2026-06-21T08:55:06.119Z