K. Tyler wrot
>   I once asked if anybody had developed a routine for object collision
> avoidance which I believe is what you will need to fill a cylinder or
> any other shape without them overlapping. Dan Connely replied that
> he had seen one recently but I can't remember where the posted reply
> is located at. Dan if your out there could you fill in the blanks.


Nathan O'Brien's "Nature" entry in the IRTC:

http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/1998-06-30/13nature.zip

BTW, this problem is non-trivial, as it will likely not be
the case that an integral number of unit cells in the
hexagonal-close-packed latticed formed by the balls will
fully fill the container.  Thus the ball positions will not
be fully constrained, and some balls may end up wedged
into nonequilibrium positions... Modeling the formation of
these stacking faults would make an interesting project.

Consider, for example, placing the balls in a spherical "bowl".
The first marble "plane" won't be planar at all, but will conform
to the bottom of the bowl.  This will make the formation of
a well-behaved lattice impossible.

Dan

-- 
http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/

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