Bounding Volumes

I have a little issue that I’m trying to think through. If I have a number of different meshes that are not ‘regular’ (some parts of them all stick out in akward directions) would it be possible to create a number of smaller bounding volumes (I’m thinking to start 1 for each triangle) and then add them together to create shaped bounding volumes such that even when two or more of these irregularly shaped objects will not overlap each other as much as if there was just one big bounding volume?



I’ll try to make an example and show in 2D…



Each object is represented by their letter.





aaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaa

aaaaabbbba

aaaabbbbaa

aaabbbbaaa



So if I have a bounding volume around ‘a’ object it would actually include the ‘b’ volume too. And if presidence says that both objects have the same priority for picking then I’m in trouble.



Any help with this problem would be appreciated.