Here are two sources, the first of which is the more substantive. The problem is even hard to approximate, but algorithms are available that achieve about $2\frac{1}{2} \times$ the optimal packing. >(1) Miyazawa, Flavio Keidi, and Yoshiko Wakabayashi. "Three-dimensional packings with rotations." *Computers & Operations Research*. 36.10 (2009): 2801-2815. ([PDF download](http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~fkm/publication/rotation.pdf).) <hr /> ![BinPacking1][1] <hr /> > (2) E. Dube, L.R. Kanavathy. "Optimizing three-dimensional bin packing through simulation." *Proc. Modeling, Simulation, Optimization*. 2006. ([PDF download](http://www.cs.ukzn.ac.za/publications/erick_dube_507-034.pdf).) <hr /> ![BinPacking2][2] <hr /> [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/P65mC.png [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/msYN2.png