Largest Area Fit First (LAFF) 3D box packing algorithm class for PHP

Version 1.0

by Maarten de Boer

With special thanks to:

• Erik de Boer

Introduction

This PHP class helps to solve the so called "3D packing problem" often seen when packing containers with boxes (eg. for a webshop). It calculates the approximate minimum container size needed to fit the boxes and also gives additional information like on which level they are packed.

The class was written using the "An Efficient Algorithm for 3D Rectangular Box Packing" paper by M. Zahid Gürbüz, Selim Akyokus, Ibrahim Emiroglu and Aysun Güran. It contains a step by step explanation of the problem and the solution.

PDF file of the document: http://www.zahidgurbuz.com/yayinlar/An%20Efficient%20Algorithm%20for%203D%20Rectangular%20Box%20Packing.pdf

Minimum Requirements

• PHP 5+

Installation

1. Include the laff-pack.php file in your php code
2. Initialize the LAFFPack class
3. Call the pack() method to start packing
4. Sit back, sip a beer and relax!

Example:

<?php
	require_once("laff-pack.php");
	
	// Initialize boxes array
	$boxes = array(
		array(
			'length' => 50,
			'width' => 35,
			'height' => 23
		),
		array(
			'length' => 18,
			'width' => 38,
			'height' => 16
		)
	);
	
	// Initialize LAFFPack
	$laff = new LAFFPack();
	$laff->pack($boxes);
	
	// or
	
	$laff = new LAFFPack($boxes);
	$laff->pack();
?>

Please see the examples directory for more examples!