Inverse problem in laser forming involves the heating position planning and the determination of heating parameters. In this study, the heating positions are optimized in laser forming of single curved shapes based on the processing efficiency. The algorithm uses a probability function to initialize the heating position that is considered to be the bending points. The optimization process is to minimize the total processing time through adjusting the heating positions by considering the boundary conditions of the offset distances, the minimum bending angle, and the minimum distance between two adjacent heating positions. The optimized results are compared with those obtained by the distance-based model as well as the experimental data
