I have about 50 rectangular pieces of paper, with dimensions between 1 and 5 inches and different "aspect ratios." I'd like to fit them all inside the smallest rectangle possible. Additional constraints are that each rectangle should not be rotated (imagine they all have an arrow on them, and the arrow must be pointing up) and no rectangle be cropped or resized.
I've tried approaching this from two angles. First was digital collage software. However, it seems that because collage software are used for digital collages, most if not all don't have options to preserve image size. Many seemingly don't even have options to disable automatic cropping.
Second, I've looked into nesting software used for CNC and laser cutters. This seems more promising, but most do not have an option to disable rotation, most are priced for commercial use by big companies, and many require knowledge of CAD software (no .svg importing).
What software (either standalone or plugin/scripts for Photoshop or Illustrator) could help me with this problem? I'm aware of questions like this and this; I'm hoping that better solutions exist for shapes that are irregular, but all rectangular.