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Cutlist and Layout from Sketchup

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286K views 319 replies 81 participants last post by  danielsheppard  
#1 ·
Cutlist and Layout from Sketchup

If you're a fan of Sketchup for creating woodworking models, then the next obvious step is to use Sketchup to help you create cutlists and layouts. Sketchup plugin Cutlist 4.1 does just that. CutList 4.1 sketchup plugin helps you determine how much of each material you need to produce your design, taking into account nominal sized lumber with allowances for finishing to final size. Then it goes one further and lays out all of the pieces on boards or sheet good sizes of your choosing. Then you should be all set to head for the lumber yard to get all of the materials that you will need with no return trips.

CutList 4.1 was beta tested by our very own Lumberjocks and is now ready for download.

It's being released exclusively to Lumberjocks first. You can download v4.1.10 here . This is a completely free plugin. This plugin has been around since about 2005 but continues to be maintained and enhanced. It's got the look and feel of old Woodsmith magazine cutlists and layouts. A very early version v3.3 was reviewed in the Fine Woodworking blog 'Design.Click.Build.' by Dave Richards and a later follow up.

Note that there is now a forum on Lumberjocks for further discussion.

Cutlist 4.1 has been tested with both Skletchup 7, Sketchup 8, SU2013 and SU2014 on both Macs and on Windows PCs.

Installing. There are now 3 ways to install this.

Method 1 (easiest) Get and install it from Sketchup Extension Warehouse
  • Start up Sketchup
  • from Sketchup choose: Window->Extension Warehouse
  • Search for and select 'CutList'
  • click on install ( big red bar on top right)

Method 2 (easy) Download and install it using the Sketchup extension installer
A relative foolproof way to install is now available with the latest versions (from v4.1.6 and up).
  • Download it from link above
  • Start up Sketchup
  • from Sketchup choose: Window->Preferences
  • click on 'Extensions'
  • click on 'Install Extension', hen navigate to and select the .rbz file you just downloaded

Method 3 (if all else fails) This is a two step process and more error prone

  • The file is a .rbz (a zipped ruby source) file. Extract the entire contents into your sketchup plugin directory not just the startup ruby script (srcutlist.rb). There is also a folder called srcutlistui which contains everything else it needs to work properly. The exact locations of the directories required for Sketchup plugins for Windows or Mac are found documented further down in the blog.

Running on a Mac. This is functional. Only the html output window for the layout does not work because of issues with the Safari browser, however, there is a workaround using the SVG export.

Someone in the forum asked a great question which I will repeat here:

Q. What is the point of the cutting diagram?

A. Why indeed would you want a cutting diagram? There are a few reasons:
  1. Regardless of whether or not you have a cutting diagram, eventually you are going to have to cut some wood to get a project built. How many boards do you need to buy? If you go by the board feet measured ( or calculated by something like the cutlist plugin) you're going to find that it falls short. Why? because when you to to cut the pieces out of the board, you'll find that you will inevitable have waste. By having the cutting diagram, you can see how much waste there is going to be and you know how much to get when you to the lumber yard.
  2. You've got a lot of parts to cut and you want your parts to be as accurate as possible before you even do anything else to the pieces. Ideally you want one setup for each size of part, so that you can cut each of the parts which are the same size at the same time. The cutting diagram lets you visualize how parts may be laid out to minimize on the cuts and the number of setups.
  3. Ok, you've decided to build your project out of sustainably harvested plantation teak. It's selling for $50/square foot(!) for 3/4". You might be interested in using those $200 boards as efficiently as possible. A cutting diagram may also be used to minimize waste. Even if you have waste if you could have a larger part left over which you could reuse for another project vs having a lot of offcuts, you've saved yourself some money and you are using the planet's resources efficiently and responsibly.

So, to sum up, it gives you more accurate project requirements, it minimizes setup time and shop time spent cutting the boards while increasing accuracy and finally it helps to use the resources as efficiently as possible.

Finally here are some screen shots in case you still can't quite figure out what it does or why you would want it or can't imagine what it looks like.

Starting up cutlist. Highlight your project and select CutList from the plugin menu. Make sure all of the parts in your project are named and are either a component or a group. ( Nested components or groups are handled ok as well)

Image


The screen that comes up allows you to select your cutlist options from the type of output you want, what you want to have included in your parts list, which parts are solid wood parts, which are sheet goods parts and which are hardware

Image


and the next page allows you to select the layout options. There is a general options section, a tab for board options and a tab for sheet options.

Image


Here is a sample of cutlist output. This is the cutting list in html format. This page can be printed.

Image


If you scroll down, then there is a summary of the board feet and the materials and sheet parts and hardware are broken down to their own lists with their own summaries

Image


If you selected the layout output, then another window will open and place all of the selected parts on boards of your choosing in a layout which minimizes waste.

Image


Sheet parts layout is placed on the sheet sizes you specified.

Image


There's lots more. There is built in help on each option. Just click on the blue ? next to the option.

Feel free to pass along any comments, questions, enhancement requests or bug reports. I'm committed to maintaining the plugin and make it as useful as possible.
 
#202 ·
I haven't had any problems sort by thickness, although I'm working in mm, don't know if that makes any difference.

For different materials in similar thicknesses, you need to edit or create different names in the materials pallette. One thing I've found, however, is that these definitions aren't saved with the project, so you have to redo them every time (there may be a way to save these and reload, but I haven't gotten there yet).

I usually generate two and sometimes three versions of the cutlist for the workshop - one sorted by material and length, one by component, and sometimes one by part number - it makes it easier to have two different ways to find things.
 
#203 ·
Got you. I think you pretty much have to accept the fact that you'll need to manipulate and sort the data in a spreadsheet program. I'm used to working in Excel, but there's loads of free alternatives.

One minor niggle about this is that Cutlist inserts "mm" in the actual cell after all measurements in mm, which means you have to search and replace the "mm" with nothing. Also, it inserts the "~" sign for measurements that are between whole mm - it would be great if you could just set it to round up or down. Both of these symbols prevent the spreadsheet program from seeing the numbers as numbers.

I have to say, though, that Cutlist has saved me HUGE amounts of time and trouble on the large kitchen cabinet building project I'm working on. Thanks again!
 
#206 ·
Sorry guys I am a bit behind on my responses.

Hi dennettfarm Baltic birch 5'x5' is already added in the next version just not released.If yoiu need a pre-release version, let me know, I'll send you a copy. It's a stable release with some new features/fixes but not enough to justify a new release yet. Alternatively, I provided instructions here on how to hack the plugin for customized sizes in the short term. I've been asked for some other unusual sizes and I doubt I can accommodate all but I hope to have the next version allow customized entry (ies)

tooold/daver I will check about the mm showing up in the excel csv output. I've already made a few changes to remove some characters that were problematic, especially for the cutlist plus import but this was probably not applied to csv files well.
Yes, Dave, I could rearrange the output of the csv output - easy peasy - makes no difference to me so whatever order makes most sense. I could see why thickness might be the first column for most. The only issue I have is that some places prefer the other way around! Here in New Zealand we talk about 4×2's, not tubafors - width always comes first. Looks like another option required!

Anyone who wants a customised version can get in touch with me. I can either walk you through what you need to change or I can make the change and send it to you. Hopefully I will remember to incorporate the changes or possibility to configure as you need into the next version and so when you upgrade you'll still have your custom feature.

Did I miss any questions?
 
#207 ·
Hi Dave.

I'll definitely make it an option. If you want a customized version of Cutlist, just give me a shout - will be happy to make the change for you - it's very easy.

Steve

btw. In fact, nothing sticks to Teflon, not even the pan. It's secured by nano-bolts.
 
D
#208 ·
This is great. One possible idea that would be wonderful for some of the work I do is to take into account grain direction. Maybe I missed this feature, but it would be a huge help to be able to define what direction the wood grain needs to go in when preparing the layout. This can dramatically affect the way I cut my wood.

Hopefully I am not being a idiot and requesting a feature that already exists. :)

Great work on this BTW.

Doug
 
#209 ·
Hi Doug (drobertson)!

The feature is not there yet but it has been considered. Sketchup does not have a concept of grain direction, even when materials are applied ( since the material is just a skin of 0 width on the surfaces and its orientation is only a visual thing).

Right now grain direction is assumed to be in the direction of the longest side. This is the simplistic approach which actually works in most cases.

So, in order to add grain direction, some additional attributes need to be added to the component. I had imagined that for components which do not follow the natural rule ( grain in direction of longest side), you would rght click on the component and add some information ( the exact interface unknown at this time) which would override the default. Then the plugin could take this into account when laying out.

So, it's not there yet but under consideration for being added. I seem to be rather slow in adding new stuff these days so be patient!

Thanks for your question, comments and feedback. Always appreciated.

Steve
 
#210 ·
Hi all, just found a link for this site and download. Sounds exactly what I've been looking for.I have a project 99% done and will want to print a cutlist and plans. Now my ?'s, I'm on a Mac, and can't figure how to open the "Plugins" on Sketchup. I've found it on the HD, but I don't see anything happen when I click open. I've downloaded the cutlist already, just can't take the next step. Pleas any help you can give will be greatly appreciated!! And also want to say thank you for developing this program, should help out tremendously.

Paul
 
#211 ·
Hi Paul,

Welcome to Lumberjocks! Thanks for your comments. I hope the plugin is what you are looking for.
This is a question which comes up reasonably often, so recently I've spent a bit more time answering the question on the forum which I also run on this topic ( I still monitor this original blog as well as the forum, so no harm done).

Check this response and see if this helps for installation questions.

Assuming you've installed it correctly, you would just need to fire up Sketchup, select the components you want in your cutlist and then click on the 'Plugins' menu selection and select 'Cut List' from the drop down menu.

If you still have trouble, let me know and I'll help you work through it.
 
#212 ·
Hi Steve, thanks for getting back to me. Luckily my son came over for the holiday and we got a little time to work on getting the cutlist into sketchup. It now shows up on the top right next to the help button. But when I select a component then click on cutlist a blank window opens and thats it. What am I doing wrong now.

Paul
 
#213 ·
Hi Paul,

Still likely an installation issue. Make sure the entire contents of the original zip file is in the plugins directory. This includes the directory called 'cutlistui'. Sounds like you have the ruby script in there now but are missing the directory which contains the html scrpts which the plugin needs to run in order to display the interface.

Hope that helps, if not, contact me on PM with you email address and we can email directly.
 
#215 ·
Thanks for that Morton. I'd be lying if I didn't say I didn't like feedback like that.
The big orange box and the big blue box probably hate me because now you only go in for what you really need but your pocketbook benefits and trust me, a tree somewhere is very happy.
 
#219 ·
I have tried a few different combinations but can not get a "layout parts" or "sheets goods part" view. I am on a mac, if the how to is different from a pc. I do get a little window that pops up that says SVG Layout written into 1 file: //sideboard final_layout-p1.svg. Anyone know what this means? Thanks for your help.

Paul
 
#221 ·
Hi Paul,

The SVG file is your 'layout parts' file. It's the only option on a Mac for this file.

I believe Safari 3.1 and greater (ref ) can be used to open and display SVG files. You might try that first before downloading Firefox.

The SVG file is always placed in the same folder as your sketchup model. If you're not sure where that is, then if you run cutlist again, the popup which tells you that it saved the SVG file, tells you exactly where it saved it.

Within the layout view or the cutlist view, if you want to split the parts into 'solids' vs 'sheet goods', this is done by firstly designing your model in such a way that the sheet goods have a material name applied to them which is distinct from the solid parts.

Then, when you add this name (or a part of the name which would uniquely match the material name) to the 'sheet part words' on the front of the menu ( or use the defaults that come with the plugin), then the plugin will know to select these parts and treat them as a sheet good. Then they will be split in the cutlist and be layed out using the sheet goods criteria.

For example, if you applied a material name to all your sheet good pieces called 'maple plywood' and the word 'plywood' is included in the menu box called 'Sheet Material Words', then all parts which have plywood in their material will be recognized as a sheet good in the rest of the plugin.

Hope this helps!
 
#222 ·
Thanks Dave and Steve, between the 2 reply's I was able to find the files. Lets see if you can answer this question. I've just noticed the "grain" in the material I applied to my model seems to be running in the wrong direction(across a board and not along the length of it), is this correctable? Also is there a way of changing the default for the font size when using the dimension tool? Or is it necessary to change each and everyone when adding dimensions?

Paul
 
I
#223 ·
Oh my - I was saying to a friend the other day that all i lacked in sketchup was the ability to output a cutlist - and here it is. Completely gorgeous. Like a big plate of gorgeous with hot gorgeous sauce poured all over it and covered in gorgeous sprinkles. And free!!!!!!! paypal donation on its way - will watch with baited breath for a kerf version but in the meantime I need to go and lay down in a darkened room for a while to recover from the joy! :)
 
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