The irregular nesting problem: a new approach for nofit polygon calculation

This paper presents a new approach for generating the nofit polygon (NFP) that is simple, intuitive and computationally efficient. The NFP has in recent years become an important tool for handling the geometric calculations for two-dimensional irregular shape nesting problems. Its value lies in reducing the computational complexity of detecting whether two polygons overlap. The proposed NFP generator is based on the novel concept of trace line segments that are derived from the interaction of the two-component polygons. The complete set of the trace line segments contain all the boundary edges of the NFP and some internal points that need to be discarded. Algorithms for deriving the trace line segments, efficiently determining those segments that form the boundary of the NFP and the identification of holes and degenerate cases are described.