Tess

Tess creates patterns for origami tessellations. It can generate archimedean, rotational, and other standard geometry tilings.

The overall layout of the program is simple enough for users to understand it in a couple of minutes. Users can tweak the pleat angle, pleat ratio, and canvas size with just a couple of sliders in the top bar, while more options are placed in the top left corner of the app's GUI.

More options, available standard tiles, and 'Session' settings can be accessed from the row of buttons placed in the top bar.

Users are allowed to create all sorts of standard tiles present in the drop-down menu under the 'Geometry' button. From there they can alter the pattern format in the 'Action' menu where they can choose whether the model must be moved, decomposed, deleted, or to make it take the shape of a crystal. Afterward, the users can manually click on the canvas model and the desired action takes place.

In case users need to select multiple canvas sessions, they all get saved under the 'Session' button from where they can be accessed quickly. However, tiles and patterns don't superimpose. Every time someone needs to import a new model he has to start a fresh new canvas.

However, one of the main hurdles of the design is the cascade of popup alerts that invade users when a certain action is not allowed. Before rectifying a certain system mistake, every popup must be closed separately so the work can start again.

Projects can be saved only to PDF and postscript formats, meaning that later on patterns created in Tess can be easily ported in more advanced image editors like Photoshop and Corel.

Tess is a simple and useful artist companion, since it helps users create and modify standard shapes, and then have them exported in common formats that get easily supported by other editors.