Packaging issue

[kolevich]

Hello,
We have an issue with BoxPacker when trying to pack 11 items in a single box.

item:

• width: 4.2
• length: 10
• height: 7

box 1:

• width: 16
• length: 18
• height: 16
• item qty: 11
• result: failed to pack in a single box https://phpsandbox.io/n/lingering-violet-x11l-yrteq

We are pretty sure it's a bug because a) our end-user states it works in a real-life b) it works fine when we split this box into 2 and trying to pack 3 and 8 items in there, like this:

box 2:

• width: 16
• length: 18
• height: 6
• item qty: 3
• result: success to pack in a single box

box 3:

• width: 16
• length: 18
• height: 10
• item qty: 8
• result: success to pack in a single box

Would appreciate it if you check this and give your comments.

[dvdoug]

it works fine when we split this box into 2 and trying to pack 3 and 8

Sounds like you might have found an edge case where the algorithm picks a wrong orientation. I hate these 😅

[kolevich]

@dvdoug thanks for the quick response. Is there a way to fix it? Are you planning to do so at an early date?

[dvdoug]

Hi @kolevich

There is no perfect box-packing algorithm in existence, so like all such algorithms BoxPacker is essentially a set of heuristics which due to their very nature will sometimes pick the non-optimal* result. It's usually fairly easy for me to track down which heuristic causes any particular sub-optimal result, the difficult part is coming up with a new, tweaked version of it that works better for the particular scenario at hand without regressing other cases in the test suite....

• I've used that word on purpose rather than "wrong"

[dvdoug]

I've had a look at this, sadly haven't found a revised heuristic yet that works yet without regressing more cases than it improves