Rotational placement of irregular polygons over containers with fixed dimensions using simulated annealing and no-fit polygons

This work deals with the problem of minimizing the waste of space that occurs on a rotational placement of a set of irregular bi-dimensional small items inside a bi-dimensional large object. This problem is approached with an heuristic based on simulated annealing. Traditional " external penalization" techniques are avoided through the application of the no-fit polygon, that determinates the collision-free region for each small item before its placement. The simulated annealing controls: the rotation applied and the placement of the small item. For each non-placed small item, a limited depth b...