An Octree-Based Heuristic Algorithm for 3-D Packing

Abstract

Abstract Based on the Object-Oriented Simulation System for 3-D Packing developed by Dai & Cha (1993a), this paper presents an effective heuristic algorithm using the Octree Data Structure for the three-dimensional packing problems of irregular components. It also describes in detail the Tri-Ring Method which is designed for the topology identification of the octree’s construction. For those problems where the total volume of packed items is smaller than that of container, the results of the theoretical analysis and numerical experiments show that the heuristic is excellent both in packing quality and calculation cost. For those problems where the total volume of packed items is larger than that of container, a variant of this method is expected to be also quite effective. The packing of arbitrarily shaped objects is achieved by packing their octrees generated from their EXTENTS or BOUNDING BOXES.