TreeMaker 5.1.2

A program for origami design.

Originally written by Robert J. Lang, et al.

2026 update for macOS by Vish Vishvanath, et al.

TreeMaker is a program for the design of origami bases and a sophisticated tool that helps you create complex origami figures using the tree theory of origami design. You draw a stick figure on a square, assign lengths to each stick, and TreeMaker computes a crease pattern that folds into the corresponding base.

Download

Signed and notarized macOS builds are available from the Releases page.

• macOS: Apple Silicon (arm64), requires macOS 13.3 Ventura or later

What's New in 5.1.2

• Built for Apple Silicon (arm64) with wxWidgets 3.2.7
• Signed with Developer ID and notarized by Apple
• Fixed crash in condition path inspector panels (issue #9)
• C++20 codebase, compiled with Clang 17
• Self-contained build system with no system-wide dependencies

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• macOS 13.3 or later
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
• CMake 3.15 or later (brew install cmake)

Build

The included build.sh script downloads wxWidgets 3.2.7, compiles it locally under deps/, then builds TreeMaker. No system-wide installation of wxWidgets is required.

# Debug build (default)
./build.sh

# Release build
./build.sh Release

The built application will be at build/bin/TreeMaker.app.

To remove build artifacts:

# Remove TreeMaker build only (keeps wxWidgets)
./build.sh clean

# Remove everything including wxWidgets
./build.sh clean-all

Debugging

lldb build/bin/TreeMaker.app/Contents/MacOS/TreeMaker

Credits

• Robert J. Lang (lead author)
• Carlos Furuti (Linux port)
• Wlodzimierz 'ABX' Skiba (Windows port)
• Vish Vishvanath (2025-6 macOS refresh)

Special thanks to Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Toshiyuki Meguro, Alex Bateman, Marshall Bern, Barry Hayes, Tom Hull, and Fumiaki Kawahata for algorithmic insight. Thanks to Stefan Csomor and the wxWidgets team, and to Will Naylor and Bill Chapman (authors of wnlib).

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See LICENSE.txt for details.

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Information for Programmers

TreeMaker consists of several projects that can be built individually or together. Source code and headers for all projects is contained within the Source directory. TreeMaker can be built as a model-only library or as the full application with GUI. All the code to build the model is in the included files. However, you will need to download and build the wxWidgets libraries (<www.wxwidgets.org>) in order to build the TreeMaker application with GUI.

On macOS, build.sh handles the wxWidgets download, build, and configuration automatically.

Source layout

• Source/tmModel -- the complete TreeMaker mathematical model (no GUI, no wxWidgets dependency)
• Source/tmwxGUI -- the TreeMaker GUI, built on wxWidgets
• Source/test -- command-line test programs for parts of the model
• Source/images -- images such as the splash screen
• Source/about -- the about page shown in the application
• Source/help -- the built-in help documentation

tmHeader.h is the required prefix header for all code (precompiled via tmPrec.cpp). tmHeader.cpp contains assertion and log code common to all files.

Preprocessor symbols

The relevant compiler symbols are:

• __WXDEBUG__ -- wxWidgets debug symbol
• TMDEBUG -- TreeMaker debug assertions
• TMPROFILE -- profiling / timing output
• TMWX -- building with wxWidgets GUI

For a release build of the full app, define only TMWX.

Build configurations

• Debug -- __WXDEBUG__ + TMWX, no optimizations, full symbols. Links against wxWidgets debug libraries. Assertions break into the debugger.
• Development -- TMDEBUG + TMWX, no optimizations, symbols. Links against wxWidgets release libraries. Assertions show a dialog then terminate.
• Profile -- TMPROFILE + TMWX, full optimizations, symbols. Writes timing info to log. Assertions compiled out.
• Release -- TMWX only, full optimizations. Assertions compiled out, no timing or log output.

Test code

The test files are command-line tools for debugging parts of the model (no GUI). Do not define TMWX for test code. Header search paths should include all folders in Source/ recursively.

Test file	Purpose	Dependencies
tmArrayTester.cpp	General-purpose container class	tmHeader.cpp, tmModel/tmPtrClasses
tmDpptrTester.cpp	Dangle-proof pointer/array classes	tmHeader.cpp, tmModel/tmPtrClasses
tmNewtonRaphsonTester.cpp	Newton-Raphson root-finding	tmHeader.cpp, tmModel/tmPtrClasses
tmNLCOTester.cpp	Nonlinear constrained optimization	tmHeader.cpp, tmModel/tmPtrClasses, tmModel/tmNLCO, tmModel/wnlib
tmModelTester.cpp	Full model including optimizers	tmHeader.cpp, tmModel (all subdirectories)

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Code conventions

The codebase is split into three groups, identifiable by prefix:

• tm -- model classes (tmNode, tmTree, tmEdge, etc.)
• wx -- wxWidgets library classes
• tmwx -- TreeMaker GUI classes built on wxWidgets (tmwxApp, tmwxDesignCanvas, etc.)

Naming rules:

• Classes use PascalCase with the appropriate prefix
• Functions use PascalCase
• Variables use camelCase
• Member variables start with m (mLoc, mPath)
• Static members start with s (sTag)
• Macros, constants, and enum values use ALL_CAPS

Implementation files may be split with a _Usage suffix (e.g. MyClass_IO.cpp). The model (tmModel) uses exceptions, RTTI, and template specialization. It does not depend on wxWidgets.