γ-Soft packings of rectangles

Abstract We consider the problem of packing a set of rectangles into a square. The areas of the rectangles are given while their aspect ratios can be chosen from a given interval [ 1 , γ ] . We will show that there is always a feasible solution if the square is at least by a factor ρ γ : = max ⁡ { 4 γ 4 γ − 1 , 2 γ } bigger than the total area of the rectangles. Moreover, we will prove that this bound is tight.