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Conference rusure::math

Title:Mathematics at DEC
Moderator:RUSURE::EDP
Created:Mon Feb 03 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2083
Total number of notes:14613

1519.0. "Best cut/least waste problems" by SMOOT::ROTH (The 13th Floor Elevators) Thu Nov 07 1991 15:48

My query or a similar one may have already been answered in this
conference, so please forgive if this is a duplication of an earlier
posting...

Problem/puzzle:

You are given a 4ft. x 8ft. sheet of plywood. You must cut two different
sizes of rectangles from the stock. When finished, you must have equal
numbers of piece 'A' and piece 'B' with the least amount of waste.

Where should the cuts be made to achieve the above goals?

Question:

What area of mathematics deals with this subject?

Certainly there are computer systems today figuring out these kinds of
things...

Thanks-

Lee Roth
T.RTitleUserPersonal
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1519.1is this stated correctly ?HANNAH::OSMANsee HANNAH::IGLOO$:[OSMAN]ERIC.VT240Thu Nov 07 1991 16:116

Why not just cut almost anywhere, parallel to an edge ?  That will give you
one piece of size A and one of size B.


1519.2Combinatorial MinimizationCIVAGE::LYNNLynn Yarbrough @WNP DTN 427-5663Thu Nov 07 1991 17:1915
The general problem space is related to problems in the garment industry, 
where you want to cut many suits (e.g.) from a bolt of cloth with minimum 
waste (and also with certain other constraints e.g. direction of weave).
The problem in .0 is a simple instance with many of the more complex
constraints removed. As presented, it's a combinatorial minimization
problem [find the minimum number of sheets of plywood to make n pairs of 
pieces]. It's also related to the classical Knapsack problem. I think it's 
likely to be NP-complete (i.e. the cost of a *complete* solution is likely
to be exponential in the number of pieces), but there may be reasonably 
cheap ways of finding near-optimal solutions.

The method of Simulated Annealing has recently been used to attack such 
problems with good success. It's not immediately clear how to express this 
particular problem in that framework, but the approach is discussed in 
"Numerical Recipes".
1519.3SMOOT::ROTHThe 13th Floor ElevatorsFri Nov 08 1991 14:0110
Re: .1

I should have pointed out that the end goal was to as many shapes as
possible from a single sheet of stock.

Re: .2

Thanks for the reference... I will check into that.

Lee
1519.4some assumptionsCSSE::NEILSENWally Neilsen-SteinhardtFri Nov 08 1991 14:2114
I assume that 

	the sizes of rectanges A and B are given (and that they are 
	smaller than the 4 x 8 piece you start with)

	you are willing to ignore kerf

	you are willing to ignore the setup costs of the cuts (cutting plywood
	in the real world with a circular saw, I would want all my cuts to
	go all the way across the piece being cut.  I would also accept some
	additional waste to minimize the number of cuts.)


I have no idea how to solve the general problem.
1519.5More details, pleaseCIVAGE::LYNNLynn Yarbrough @WNP DTN 427-5663Fri Nov 08 1991 15:144
What values of 'A' and 'B' are of interest?

Would edge-glued constructions be acceptable (e.g. 1x4 cut in half to make 
2x2)?
1519.6DATASMOOT::ROTHThe 13th Floor ElevatorsMon Nov 11 1991 12:1916
Re:     <<< Note 1519.5 by CIVAGE::LYNN "Lynn Yarbrough @WNP DTN 427-5663" >>>

>What values of 'A' and 'B' are of interest?

Let's say somthing like 8" x 10" for piece "A" and 2" x 12" for piece
"B".

>Would edge-glued constructions be acceptable (e.g. 1x4 cut in half to make 
>2x2)?

No gluing allowed.

Disregard kerf widths, assume no cutting loss.

Lee

1519.7My, that's convenient!CIVAGE::LYNNLynn Yarbrough @WNP DTN 427-5663Tue Nov 12 1991 12:3423
>Let's say something like 8" x 10" for piece "A" and 2" x 12" for piece
>"B".

You're in luck.

One A piece + 1 B piece is 8*10+2*12 = 104 sqin in area, and the whole 
4'x8' sheet is 48"*96" = 4608 sqin. So you can hope for [4608/104] = 44 
pairs of {A,B}, with 4608-44*104 = 32 sqin left over.

Cut the first 70" of the sheet into 7 rows of 6 8x10 pieces, 42 in all. Now
cut off 18" of rows of 4 2x12 pieces, 36 in all. Cut the remaining 8x48
piece into 2 8x10 and 8 2*12, e.g. 

	  10    10     12     12    4
	+-----+-----+------+------+---+
	|     |     |------+------+   |
      8 |     |     |------+------+   |
	|     |     |------+------+   |
	+-----+-----+------+------+---+

So you have 44 8x10, 44 2x12, and one neat 4"x8" chunk left over. On that you 
can draw a picture of the layout of the original sheet of 4'x8', to remind
yourself how to do it again the next time :-) !