Geometry and linear footage calculations

I'm re-writing an application that takes x amount of pieces and tries to fit them best to the right number and size of stock material. So given 2 pieces at one size 1 at a larger size and 3 at a larger size find the most efficient cuts from the stock material.

My Problem:
The way we currently handle this is to calculate linear footage and then step through a piece array, twice. Attempting to match the footage of the piece to the smallest core we can, along with as many other pieces possibly. I would like to optimize this as much as possible, and I'm wondering if there is some sort of equation to figure this out. I did a few searches but its hard to know what to search for.

I apologize for not being able to post code, but its long and messy anyways. Any help is appreciated.

How can we make suggestions about your code without seeing it or at least a small program the compiles and executes and demonstrates the problem.

This isn't really a Java problem, you would probably be better off posting on the Algorithms forum.

Then, once you have the algorithm, if you have problems implementing it in Java post here.

Thanks guys I'll head to algorithms