'Twas the night before Christmas and throughout the net,
Not a question was posed, at least---not yet.
When what to my horror I suddenly realized:
One present was not wrapped, a present most prized.
For a juggler of the future, three balls all the same.
But how best to foil-wrap, within a tight frame?
Q1. What is the smallest square that can wrap three unit-radius balls, without cutting the square?
To wrap means to completely cover their convex hull. I mention "foil" above because one may want to crinkle the wrapping over sphere caps, analogous to how Mozartkugeln are wrapped.1
Likely easier is this question, which may only require rough bounds:
Q2. Which of the two configurations shown above is easier to wrap, easier in the sense that a smaller square suffices?
1 The square of diagonal $2 \pi$ is the smallest square that wraps a unit-radius sphere. Demaine, Erik D., Martin L. Demaine, John Iacono, and Stefan Langerman. "Wrapping spheres with flat paper." Computational Geometry 42, no. 8 (2009): 748-757. Journal link.
Added. I thought I would compute the surface areas of the convex hulls of the two configurations. For the linear configuration,
I compute $$4 \cdot 2 \pi + 4 \pi = 12 \pi \approx 37.7 \;.$$ For the triangular configuration,
I compute $4 \pi$ for the three $\frac{1}{3}$ spheres, three times $2 \cdot \pi$ for the cylinder pieces, and two flat $\sqrt{3}$ triangles: $$4 \pi + 6 \pi + 2 \sqrt{3} = 10 \pi + 2 \sqrt{3} \approx 34.9 \;.$$ Of course, this does not address which is easier to wrap with a square.