<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Matthew Snape <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:SnapeM@rpsgroup.com">SnapeM@rpsgroup.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">Antony,</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"></font></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">I asked a similar question on GIS stack exchange last
month: <a href="http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/4828/algorithm-to-place-maximum-number-of-points-within-constrained-area-at-a-minimum" target="_blank">http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/4828/algorithm-to-place-maximum-number-of-points-within-constrained-area-at-a-minimum</a>.
Unfortunately I never found anything GIS specific. I did find
this:</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"></font></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><a href="https://devel.nuclex.org/framework/wiki/RectanglePacking#no1" target="_blank">https://devel.nuclex.org/framework/wiki/RectanglePacking#no1</a></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"></font></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">Are the roofs assumed to be rectangular, or can they be any
shape?</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" lang="en-us" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"> </font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" lang="en-us" align="left"><span> </span></div></div></blockquote><div><br> The python version of the 'Cygon' algorithm referenced there could easily be turned into a QGIS plugin of course. I've got it running as a standalone python module.<br>
<br> Good 2d bin-packing algorithms are worth millions to shipping companies, and Amazon....<br><br> This is of course a very hard problem, and by the time we have a quick solution we'll probably have roll-on solar panels that can be cut to an exact size :)<br>
<br>Barry<br></div></div>