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OP here. I'm a pretty big CNC enthusiast and part nesting is a problem I face regularly. The software that does this is all pretty expensive and I couldn't find

by Jack000 11y ago

OP here. I'm a pretty big CNC enthusiast and part nesting is a problem I face regularly. The software that does this is all pretty expensive and I couldn't find an open source implementation, so I decided to write it myself. Try it out and let me know if you have any feedback

auxym 11y ago
This is awesome! Unfortunately, my paying corporate desk-engineer job offers no opportunity, but as a grad student I did quite a bit of laser-cutting-prototyping (mostly acrylic and delrin). At one point I searched around quite a bit for reasonably priced nesting software, to no avail, only high priced professional stuff for shops. Forwarded it to my former lab, I'm sure they'll get some use out of it. Very interesting to read the implementation details, too.
HardyLeung 11y ago
This is interesting. I wrote Tagxedo http://www.tagxedo.com http://www.tagxedo.com which is another kind of constrained packing problem and there is a bit of similarity in the approaches. This is the first time I've heard of CNC packing and part nesting... May I ask what kind of software and how much they are selling for?
- Jack000 11y ago
  The one I compared with is mynesting which has a pay-per-use model. They also make nestfab, which is 2k+ per seat I believe. There are lots of others at various price point, but none that are free it seems.
theon144 11y ago
I was just about to ask what practical applications does this have, CNC milling totally makes sense :) Are there any others?
- static_noise 11y ago
  Placing electronic components for PCB layouts.
- Jack000 11y ago
  laser/waterjet/plasma/knife cutters, though technically they are CNC machines as well. It's useful whenever you need to cut a large number of parts (eg. laser cutting a paragraph of text from a piece of acrylic for an led display) The biggest value-add is in industrial applications, where efficiency is much more important. I guess that's one of the reasons that the existing software is typically very expensive or "call us for the price" type deals.
flashman 11y ago
My wife does papercraft with a Brother ScanNCut, could she use this to pack her designs more efficiently? The machine apparently does this packing but not well... maybe you could sell them know-how.
- Jack000 11y ago
  it should be possible, but it seems that particular model requires some hoop-jumping to work with SVG: http://svgcuts.com/blog/brother-scanncut-review/ http://svgcuts.com/blog/brother-scanncut-review/
dandare 11y ago
you are my hero :)
nraynaud 11y ago
cool, I'll try to integrate it to my own software: https://github.com/nraynaud/webgcode https://github.com/nraynaud/webgcode
lafar6502 11y ago
THAAAANNKS!
TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
My day job is as a laser cutter operator cutting metals. Our machine came with proprietary software NC Express which does part nesting then generates the G code for our machine. When I get time I'd like to look at your implementation and see how it comes. Most of what we cut is rectangles with holes, but there's often odd shaped components. Which greatly increases the time required for NC Express to complete the nesting - up to about 30 seconds max, mind you I'm using a 6 year old CPU here at work.

by Jack000 11y ago

auxym 11y ago

This is awesome! Unfortunately, my paying corporate desk-engineer job offers no opportunity, but as a grad student I did quite a bit of laser-cutting-prototyping (mostly acrylic and delrin). At one point I searched around quite a bit for reasonably priced nesting software, to no avail, only high priced professional stuff for shops. Forwarded it to my former lab, I'm sure they'll get some use out of it. Very interesting to read the implementation details, too.

HardyLeung 11y ago

This is interesting. I wrote Tagxedo http://www.tagxedo.com http://www.tagxedo.com which is another kind of constrained packing problem and there is a bit of similarity in the approaches. This is the first time I've heard of CNC packing and part nesting... May I ask what kind of software and how much they are selling for?

Jack000 11y ago
The one I compared with is mynesting which has a pay-per-use model. They also make nestfab, which is 2k+ per seat I believe. There are lots of others at various price point, but none that are free it seems.

theon144 11y ago

I was just about to ask what practical applications does this have, CNC milling totally makes sense :) Are there any others?

static_noise 11y ago
Placing electronic components for PCB layouts.
Jack000 11y ago
laser/waterjet/plasma/knife cutters, though technically they are CNC machines as well. It's useful whenever you need to cut a large number of parts (eg. laser cutting a paragraph of text from a piece of acrylic for an led display) The biggest value-add is in industrial applications, where efficiency is much more important. I guess that's one of the reasons that the existing software is typically very expensive or "call us for the price" type deals.

flashman 11y ago

My wife does papercraft with a Brother ScanNCut, could she use this to pack her designs more efficiently? The machine apparently does this packing but not well... maybe you could sell them know-how.

Jack000 11y ago
it should be possible, but it seems that particular model requires some hoop-jumping to work with SVG: http://svgcuts.com/blog/brother-scanncut-review/ http://svgcuts.com/blog/brother-scanncut-review/

dandare 11y ago

you are my hero :)

nraynaud 11y ago

cool, I'll try to integrate it to my own software: https://github.com/nraynaud/webgcode https://github.com/nraynaud/webgcode

lafar6502 11y ago

THAAAANNKS!

TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago

My day job is as a laser cutter operator cutting metals. Our machine came with proprietary software NC Express which does part nesting then generates the G code for our machine. When I get time I'd like to look at your implementation and see how it comes. Most of what we cut is rectangles with holes, but there's often odd shaped components. Which greatly increases the time required for NC Express to complete the nesting - up to about 30 seconds max, mind you I'm using a 6 year old CPU here at work.