This week I went through the Roco source codes related to building the components. With that understanding, I build a artificial perpendicular connection in 3D using the current Roco implementation which is based on origami. It occurred to me that any furniture built based on origami is actually isomorphic to only one plain surface. Therefore, a true perpendicular connection based on origami, which is isomorphic to more than one surface, is mathematically impossible. However, by using current Roco flexibly, we can simulate an simple perpendicular connection as a 3D model. (note that this is NOT how we want to implement perpendicular connection since we aim to develop a new algorithm instead of cleverly using origami).
The implementation is an extreme case of the following structure:
By minimizing the middle part to 0, the 3D model will look like a perpendicular connection.
However, this implementation is still based on origami. After discussing with Wenzhong, I realize that we aim to break free from the simple connection schemes based on origami, rather than maximizing the current one. Moreover, at a second thought, this would be very hard to implement.
Therefore, my task for next week will be reading and understanding the source codes which performs the actual connection based on origami. And I will try to modify the current implementation to allow perpendicular connection.