You want the to take the smallest number of your original segments which, combined, cover as much of the range as possible, with no overlaps. This sounds like a solved problem. ie; check some algorythm books/websites

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I'm not belgian but I play one on TV.

In reply to Re**4: Comparing 2-D co-ordinates by belg4mit
in thread Comparing 2-D co-ordinates by aging acolyte

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