  When folding a 3D object from a 2D material like paper, typically only an
approximation of the original surface geometry is needed. Such an approximation
can effectively be created by a (progressive) mesh simplification approach,
e.g. using an edge collapse technique. Moreover, when searching for an
unfolding of the object, this approximation is assumed to be fixed. In this
work, we take a different route and allow the approximation to change while
searching for an unfolding. This way, we increase the chances to overcome
possible ununfoldability issues. To join the two concepts of mesh approximation
and unfolding, our work combines the edge collapsing mesh simplification
technique with a Tabu Unfolder, a robust mesh unfolding approach. We
empirically show that this strategy performs faster and that it is more
reliable than prior state of the art methods.
