Dynamic Programming and Knapsack Application

Question

Im studying dynamic programming and am looking to solve the following problem, which can be found here http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms/chap6.pdf:

You

Answer 1

I think you should focus on the fact that the machine cuts the cloth into two pieces. What can fit in each of those two pieces? Consider the following:

+-------------+-------------------+
|             |       Piece B     |
|             |                   |
|  Piece A    +----------+--------+
|             |          |        |
|             |          |        |
|             |          | Piece  |
+-------------+----------+   C    |
|                        |        |
|         Piece D        |        |
+------------------------+--------+

These four fit in the cloth, but not in a way that's possible to achieve with three cuts. (Possibly a different arrangement would allow that with these particular pieces; think of this as a conceptual diagram, not to scale. My ascii art skills are limited today.)

Focussing on "where is the cut" should give you the dynamic programming solution. Good luck.