> To make a long story short, by the third generation of ReferenceFinder (written in 2003), I had incorporated all 7 of the Huzita-Justin Axioms of folding into the program, allowing it to potentially explore all possible folding sequences consisting of sequential alignments that each form a single crease in a square of paper. Of course, the family tree of such sequences grows explosively (or to be precise, exponentially); but the concomitant growth in the availability of computing horsepower has made it possible to explore a reasonable subset of that exponential family tree, and in effect, by pure brute force, find a close approximation to any arbitrary point or line within a unit square using a very small number of folds.
(emphasis added)
Measuring could be called a special case of folding (it's an accordian fold)
Coincidentally enough, I had mentioned straight edge and ruler constructions in a different thread a few minutes ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47112418
Related older thread
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45222882