Paperfolding morphisms, planefilling curves, and fractal tiles (Q764302)

The main idea of this paper -- strings obtained by paperfolding -- goes back to some results given in two letters sent by the author to Martin Gardner in the seventies of last century. Based on Knuth's suggestion, these results with proofs and completions are now presented in this paper. The paperfolding strings generate curves in the complex plane. The paper generalize some results obtained by Davis and Knuth on the self-avoiding (not crossing) and planefilled properties of the associated curves, giving simple geometric criteria for a complete classification. Similar behavior of these curves and fractals is shown, too. For some compact sets of curves, called tiles, simple formulae for the Hausdorff dimension of their boundary are given.