Generating non-overlapping spheres, python

Question

Does any of you know, apart from the (to-me) very complicated to install Yade package, a package that allows for easily generating an arbitrary ammount non-overlapping spheres inside a parallelepiped ?

If not, could you direct me to a source explaining how to efficienctly implement such an algorithm ?

Any input appreciated

Answer 1

More often people looking for to non-overlapping circles generation, which could be extended to spheres. It is discussed on math.stackexchange, see https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/2594/efficient-way-to-generate-random-points-with-a-predefined-lower-bound-on-their-p and https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/69649/generate-nonoverlapping-random-circles , I would like to point out to another potential solution which involves quasi-random numbers. For quasi-random Sobol sequences there is a statement which says that there is minimum positive distance between points which amounts to 0.5*sqrt(d)/N, where d is dimension of the problem, and N is number of points sampled in hypercube. Paper from the man himself http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378475406002382