ProtoSphere: A GPU-Assisted Prototype Guided Sphere Packing Algorithm for Arbitrary Objects

Abstract

Filling objects densely with sets of non overlapping spheres has been investigated for centuries. Once started as a pure intellectual challenge, today, sphere packings have diverse applications in a wide spectrum of scientific and engineering disciplines, for example in automated radiosurgical treatment planning, investigation of processes such as sedimentation, compaction and sintering, in powder metallurgy for three-dimensional laser cutting, in cutting different natural crystals, the discrete element method is based on them, and so forth.