This library does 3D rectangular bin packing; it attempts to match a set of 3D items to one in a set of 3D containers. The result is the single container which can hold all the items; no attempt is made to subdivide the items into several containers.

Projects using this library will benefit from:

• short and predictable calculation time,
• fairly good use of container space, and
• intuitive use for a human

So while the algorithm will not produce the theoretically optimal result (which is NP-hard), its reasonable simplicity means that in many cases it would be possible to stack the resulting container for a human without instructions.

In short, the library provides a service which is usually good enough, in time and reasonably user-friendly ;-)

Bugs, feature suggestions and help requests can be filed with the issue-tracker.

The project is implemented in Java and built using Maven. The project is available on the central Maven repository.

Example dependency config:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.skjolber</groupId>
    <artifactId>3d-bin-container-packing</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.3</version>
</dependency>

Obtain a Packager instance:

// initialization
List<Dimension> containers = new ArrayList<Dimension>();
containers.add(Dimension.newInstance(10, 10, 3)); // your container dimensions here
Packager packager = new Packager(containers);

The packager instance is thread-safe.

Then compose your item list and perform packing:

List<Box> products = new ArrayList<Box>();
products.add(new Box("Foot", 6, 10, 2));
products.add(new Box("Leg", 4, 10, 1));
products.add(new Box("Arm", 4, 10, 2));

// match to container
Container match = packager.pack(products);

The resulting match variable returning the resulting packaging details or null if no match.

The above example would return a match (Foot and Arm would be packaged at the height 0, Leg at height 2).

The implementation is based on this paper, and is not a traditional Bin packing problem solver.

The box which covers the largest ground area of the container is placed first. Subsequent boxes are stacked in the remaining space in at the same level, the boxes with the greatest volume first. Then level is increased and the process repeated. Boxes are rotated, containers not.

The units of measure is out-of-scope, be they cm, mm or inches.

By adding an additional argument to the constructor, 2D or 3D rotation of boxes can be toggled:

boolean rotate3d = ...;
Packager packager = new Packager(containers, rotate3d);

If you have any questions or comments, please email me at [email protected].

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, see also my Github page.

Apache 2.0

• 1.0.3: Fix for issue #5, minor cleanup.
• 1.0.2: Fix for issue #4, minor improvements.
• 1.0.1: Add option to toggle 2D and 3D rotation and box placement coordinates, compliments of NothinRandom.
• 1.0.0: Initial release.