An algorithm to space out overlapping rectangles?

Question

This problem actually deals with roll-overs, I\'ll just generalized below as such:

I have a 2D view, and I have a number of rectangles within an area on the screen.

Answer 1

Here's a guess.

Find the center C of the bounding box of your rectangles.

For each rectangle R that overlaps another.

1. Define a movement vector v.
2. Find all the rectangles R' that overlap R.
3. Add a vector to v proportional to the vector between the center of R and R'.
4. Add a vector to v proportional to the vector between C and the center of R.
5. Move R by v.
6. Repeat until nothing overlaps.

This incrementally moves the rectangles away from each other and the center of all the rectangles. This will terminate because the component of v from step 4 will eventually spread them out enough all by itself.