Research and Implementation of Irregular-Shaped Nesting Problem

This paper presents a new 2D irregular-shaped nesting algorithm, which is based on a new NFP (No Fit Polygon) algorithm and a new placement principle for pieces. The proposed NFP algorithm is based on the calculation of track lines which significantly reduced the time complexity. The proposed placement principle is used to place a piece to the position with the lowest gravity center based on NFP. Comparing with the bottom-left placement principle, the new principle pushes piece to others as close as possible, furthermore, it results in a relatively flat boundary for the latter pieces to be nested. The new nesting algorithm can deal with pieces with arbitrary rotation and holes; it achieved satisfied results both in nesting pattern height, nesting area-utilization ratio and computation time.