Most developers underestimate how annoying 3D packing logic actually is until they try building it.
At first it sounds simple:
“Just fit products into boxes.”
Then suddenly you’re dealing with:
- rotations
- weight limits
- stacking rules
- utilization %
- multiple box sizes
- container loading
- item coordinates
- upright-only products
I was recently testing different approaches for cartonization and load optimization and realized why most companies avoid building this in-house.
Even basic scenarios get complicated fast.
For example:
- Which box creates the least wasted space?
- How do you split 200 products across pallets?
- What’s the most efficient truck/container arrangement?
- Which items should rotate and which shouldn’t?
I ended up playing with a few APIs and visualization tools to understand how others solve this problem.
One I tested was P4P, mainly because it gives actual coordinate-based placement results and visual packing output instead of just “fits / doesn’t fit.”
Seeing real placement logic visually makes debugging way easier.
Curious how others here handle this stuff.
Do you build packing logic internally, use heuristics, or rely on external optimization APIs?
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