Update: Nevermind, I was going from the groupings to the output not the original list. Plus, I was not thinking in terms of packing the things...

I too am pretty well lost. I think you've attempted to simplify your description of the problem too much, as it's fairly obvious to me, there are many unstated rules that must be followed to get from the input to the output that is desired.

How do you determine where a given block can start on a given row, how do you know when a row is finished? Etc.

-Scott

In reply to Re: Finding the simplest combination of descrete thicknesses that sums nearest to the target thickness. by 5mi11er
in thread Finding the simplest combination of descrete thicknesses that sums nearest to the target thickness. by doowah2004

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.