Packing anchored rectangles (Q276437)

Consider a finite set \(S\) of points in the unit square \([0,1]^2\), one of which is the origin \((0,0)\). Further consider packings of axis-aligned rectangles with a point from \(S\) in the lower left corner and with no points from \(S\) in the interior. The problem is now to maximize the total area of these rectangles. It is conjectured that, for any finite set \(S\), one can always find such a packing that covers an area of at least \(1/2\). In the current paper, two algorithms for solving this packing problem are considered, and it is proved that an area of 0.09121 can always be obtained. Earlier, not even a positive lower bound was known.