I've tried it with either, all & none of the layout options selected. Still stayed with two sheets.

Makes no sense to me why it would do so. How would you like me to get the model to you?

 

Hi Chris,

Thanks, I received your model and had a chance to analyse what is going on. It's what I thought it was - there's a situation which my plugin does not handle very well at this time.

As parts get placed, the remaining available spaces are represented internally by a series of sections both vertical and horizontal. Especially in the case where the placement starts with a piece which is longer than all of the other pieces, the internal fragments can become such that none individually are large enough to hold another part though collectively they would. Visually this is obvious but a bit more involved when you are dealing with spaces represented internally by coordinates. I'll have to find a way to 'defrag' my remaining spaces so that it can check to see if more parts can be placed when it thinks the board is already full.

Not to despair, however, as I have a few ideas on how to do this. When this is sorted, it will improve the overall placement efficiency even more, for board and sheet goods. This will take a bit of time and some experimentation though.

Thanks for bringing this up! In the meantime, you can still make manual adjustments to the layout where it is obvious you can move some pieces around and save some wood using the trusty ol' visual method

Thanks for your input.

 

Is this the bit that also takes into consideration the kerf width?

 

Thanks Steve, I'll look forward to the update….

 

haha sIKE! Well, if I did take into consideration the kerf width, then this would probably be where this would happen!

But right now, remember, my plugin assumes that you have the 0 kerf atomic wood splitter saw made by Fusstool. It's really expensive, but it produces no dust.

 

that is why I was asking because if you are going though the optimization process for layout, you might as well get the kerfs worked out right mate

 

Thanks Steve for your last improvements in version 4.06.

 

Hi Jean-Franco. You're welcome and please let me know if there is something which does not work as expected with the recent changes.

sIKE - even though we spoke offline, I just wanted to address your comments here as well. You are right that it makes sense to try to tackle both of these at the same time because they do likely impact the same area of code.

One thing about kerf size from when I tried this previously is that since I use a scale of 100 pixels to 1ft when displaying the layout, a kerf of 1/8" is only 1 pixel, 1/4" is 2 pixels and so on, but a kerf size of 3/16" can't be represented accurately. Not only that but the line around the part is 2 pixels wide, so there is a concern that even if this works ok, then it will be invisible on the layout - the only outcome would be that the parts which do show up on the board or sheet will be known to fit even after cutting.

I guess, the other thing which might be useful is to define a margin allowance. I know that when I cut a part out, I don't always cut it to the final size, allowing for a final pass on the jointer to clean up saw marks. What do people think about having this option? Is this overkill or useful?

 

Probably should of been a bit more clear. I am not sure that you would want to display the kerf lines in the layout page. The suggestion would just apply to the layout optimization of the board.

Ex: Right now if I need 8 - 24"x24" pannels cutlist will layout all 8 panels on 1 sheet. However if you add kerfs to the mix you can only get 3 out of one sheet. If you did the math with the kerf width as a board during your layout optimization it would layout the pieces properly and know to leave enough space for the kerfs in the un-utilized space on the board.

None of the plans I've see actually show the diagram with the kerf lines (mainly cause they could be different from person to person) but they do leave extra space for kerf and sometimes slop….

 

No worries sIKE. I think we are saying the same thing. Visually it may not be obvious that there is an allowance for kerf but the layout result would change, consistent with what is actually possible. If kerf size is selected by the user, they can adjust for whatever slop they want. So, I guess you answered my second question. Margin allowance is not required as it can be accommodated by setting a larger kerf size than the actual saw kerf.

 

Steve, I've been working with cutlist 4.0.6 for a couple of days and I seem to have found a couple of problems.

First the good news is that all is fine with the OSX stuff; obviously the browser silliness excepted. The SVG files get created in the right place and are readable by Safari and LineForm.

Now for the apparent problems -
1) a cupboard design I'm working on has hinges and knobs (wow!) that have their material set to 'door hardware black' in order to get trapped as a Part. Doesn't seem to work. I get a listing for
C-14 2 Dooknob ~ 1 33/64" ~ 1 33/64" 1 1/2" 0.02 0.04 0.26 door hardware black
and a board of door hardware black in my SVG files
2) same cupboard has 14.5" wide top and bottom. Using 8" nominal boards that show as 7.25" actual would lead me to expect two pieces for each item but in fact I get 3. 10" boards get it 'right'. This might possibly be a decimal vs binary arithmetic issue. Seen it before and I'll doubtless see it again.

I can easily supply the skippy if it might help, or try things out where appropriate.

 

D'oh -
3) the print stuff doesn't do anything on my Mac. Printing a CSV imported into Numbers works fine though.

 

Hi Tim,

Welcome to Lumberjocks! Thanks for the comments and questions. Good to hear that it's mostly working with the Mac. Ideally they will work the same on both platforms but I guess I am going to have to spend some time on it. This won't be in a hurry. It's warming up here on the other side of the planet, the days are getting longer and we move to DST this weekend - woohoo! so will have more light in the evenings to get out to the shop.

Can't imagine what might be going on with your part showing up in the layout. Your #2 issue is equally puzzling. It could be a rounding issue - but surely that can be improved on.

As for #3, well that just sounds like the same issue that prevents the layout screen from working in the Safari browser on the Mac. In case anyone is wondering, the issue there is that Safari is paranoid about letting a script create another script and then executing it, which is what happens with the layout screen as well as how the print screen gets created. You'll have to use the workarounds for now.

As for the other issues, it will probably be best if I can get a hold of the skp file and run it through its paces to see where it messes up.

Leaving a file on box.net is one option - or shared through docs.google.com or contact me offlilst and I'll share my email address.

 

I've added a skippy to my 3d warehouse list -

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=fc02b5701e2f490a4c7f1f3285ab60d6

It's got a bunch of scenes where I'm adding dimensions for a Layout work-up as well as the main model

 

Hi Tim,

I'm currently looking at your model. Dave's point is correct about the first issue. 'Part words' are only compared against the part name and not the material name to distinguish a hardware part from other types. However, there is no reason for not checking both. I had previously made a similar change for the sheet parts, so I have made this change and will include this in the next version.

I'm continuing to look at your model for the second issue.

 

Ah, yes, well your help pop-up does in fact mention the 'part' needs to be in the component name but obviously I hadn't looked at that since I'm a Guy and Guys Don't Read Manuals. And besides, having seen the rules for the sheet stuff I assumed parts would work the same. And we all know what assume means.

 

No worries, Tim! You just pointed out an inconsistency and since I'm a guy and I know no guys reads the instructions (in fact I didn't either because the first thing I did was test it out and then start to debug why it was happening!) it's better that I change it and make it the way everyone thinks it should work.

It's done now, so with the next version, your assumption will be correct.

 

Steve

Ive drawn a framework which contains ten parts of the same section but with but with different lengths in 2 sets. The section is 30mm x 20mm but cutlist 406 reports one set correctly but the other as 31mm x 21mm is this a rounding error and can it be fixed.
AS you suggested I am now using Firefox and the SVG option to print the layout does this take care of the list or do ineed to use the csv option and print from Excell.

 

Dave/Steve The Precision was set to 0mm, I changed it to 0.00mm and the 31 X 21 changed to 30.59×20.59

 

That's it Dave and lesson learned the hard way. Thanks

 

Dave,

Thanks for jumping in there and answering the question and the tips about precision.

I thought I would just comment on how the cutlist plugin works in this regard. Cutlist, like Sketchup avoids doing units conversions as much as possible by storing everything in standardized units ( which happens to be inches) and in the precision set by the user in their sketchup preferences. If a value is to be displayed then the values are displayed using Sketchup's own methods. Internally, I just convert into a 'length' type and then convert it to a display string. I don't even need to know what unit was being used or what precision, this is all hidden (as it should be) and all handled in exactly the same way that Sketchup manages what values were stored and in what format and precision you had selected.

The only math that I do is the calculation of things specific to cutlist - square feet, volume, splitting parts to fit boards - and these are subject to the values that I use to do the calculations. I have made some improvements to the internal calculations that I do after some anomalies were pointed out.

As Dave mentioned, to improve precision, the best thing to do is to work with the highest precision possible while creating your model. You can always change to a less precise unit for display purposes.

Thanks for the continued interest and questions.

 

Steve some time ago you answered My query about Printing from Cutlist. Using the SVG option works fine for the layout but should it also produce a component list or is the CSV option the best
Ted

 

Hi Ted,
The SVG option at this time only exists as an alternative for the layout screen as there was no viable way of printing from the layout window. On the Mac, this screen wouldn't even display.

The same issue does not exist for the parts list. It displays ok on both platforms and there is a print button at the bottom of the window as well as there being a CSV option, so an SVG option was never developed for it, though it could be considered for a future release.

Would you prefer the SVG option to print everything?

 

Hi Steve
I should have told you more, I amusing a PC with Windows XP I Usually use MS IE but now have Firefox for the SVG layout.
AS you say there is a print view option for the parts llist which produces a new window for the parts list with a print button, but the print buttom does nothing. It seems then I have a problem on my system unless you know better. I like the idea of the SVG option printing everything, though some users my like the option of one or both
Ted

 

Steve,

Just touching base with you in reference to our earlier discussion with regards to layout optimization on sheet goods. I have not been on all that much since we last talked and was wondering if you had any luck with the issue…

Regards,
Chris