Visual Analysis of Packing Process for 3D Container

Abstract

The cutting and packing problem has been encountered in many industrial sectors, and become a research focus in operations research. Because of its nature, it is a commendable goal to visualise the process of cutting and packing for analysis and validation of the algorithms. This is even more desirable when working in a 3- dimensional environment. There have been some visualisation packages for which the working algorithms are hidden behind the screen. Furthermore, their effectiveness and flexibility are limited in some sense. This research presents a visual analysis tool for 3-dimensional container loading. A new loading and display algorithm is devised to suit requirements for container loading. Test results are given with recommendations for further effort.