A fast 2D packing procedure for the interactive design and preparation of laser-cut objects for fabrication

Abstract

The 2D packing problem is commonly encountered in various CNC manufacturing workflows such as laser cutting. The goal of this optimization problem is to place a set of irregular polygons onto a material sheet without overlapping and in a way that minimizes wasted material. In this thesis, we delve into a fast 2D packing algorithm that automatically arranges parts of a user's design onto their available material sheets to provide live feedback on how much material they have left. To do this, we make use of the concept of the no fit polygon to generate candidate placements, and we utilize custom heuristics and performance optimization to improve packing quality and runtime . Our technical evaluation shows that the implementation is fast enough to work at interactive speeds and produce solutions of similar quality to other tools and algorithms that perform automated packing.