Programme wanted for panel cutting.

[mralan]

Hi All,
do you know of any programme..online or download I can get for free for panel cutting optimisation. All I want is very basic, I have quite a few cuts to make in panels of 8x4 , (all by hand on a trusty onld wadkin panel saw) Also must work in metric.

Thanks in advance.

Alan

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Not free but the most popular one seems to be CutList Plus. They have a free trial.

A simple Google search turned up this. You could try it and see if it'll do the job.

 

[Chems]

I use CutList, its free. Don't know where you download it from nowdays but I uploaded it here:

http://www.fileserve.com/file/MRxtDyf

I make my model in SU then just input the parts into this and give it the supply pieces and it does a good job.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I hate those fileserve sites. Just saying.

 

[Chems]

Just for you on my own webspace: www.chemsworks.com/CUTLIST341.zip

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thank you. I tried jumping through all the hoops on the fileserve site and never did get the download to start.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Interesting application. So do you have to enter the dimensions manually? Looks like it will generate a TXT file? Could you modify the CSV output from CutList and LayOut, save as a CSV and open that in this programme? It doesn't look like there's any way to account for material thickness so if you have multiple thicknesses, you would need to run them separately.

 

[Chems]

I don't think its got the capability of the commercial programs. I manual explode my stuff in Sketchup then input it. It doesn't have anything for board thickness as that seem irrelevant for work with sheets. It does have support for blade kerf which is nice. And you can also manually arrange the parts. It out puts an image and a text based cutting list. I don't know if you can input a file to be parsed by it, but if you made up a txt file in this format it would open it as a cutlist:

V2
Decimalseparator.

Required
850.000 344.000 Base Unit: Sides
850.000 344.000 Base Unit: Sides
688.000 344.000 Base Unit: Base
688.000 50.000 DrawerFrame: Top Rails
688.000 50.000 DrawerFrame: Top Rails

Available
2400.000 600.000 T
2400.000 600.000 T

This is the output for my latest piece. And I used these SU diagrams to input it all.









HTH

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thanks for that. So it appears it is really just for sheet goods and you would be wise to create a list for just one thickness at a time.

To me it seems like a lot of extra work to enter the dimensions of the parts manually compared to 1 or 2 seconds it takes to get a complete cutlist and layout direct from SketchUp that is sorted by material thickness and by whether it is a sheet material or lumber (or other parts).

Thanks for sharing it though. I had never seen this one before.

 

[Chems]

Directly from sketchup, is that a plugin or does it do it off the shelf?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

A plugin.

 

[Chems]

That looks like a very decent plugin, I'll give that a go on the next project.

 

[barkwindjammer]

Could one of you guys put up 'installing plug ins for Dummies' type info, I've faffed around trying to get it work, I cant even see a drop down with the word plug in ? :?

I have SK7 and have downloaded the zip file from the link Dave posted

 

[SketchUp Guru]

BWJ, are you using a PC or Mac? Most of it is the same for both.

To activate the Plugins menu, go to Window>Preferences>Extensions. Tick all of the boxes. Click OK. On Mac Preferences are found under SketchUp (to the left of File)

For installing plugins from ZIP files, see this.

 

[barkwindjammer]

Thanks again for the assistance Dave, got it now