oddsocks
Established Member
I just been experimenting and have exported from sketchup and into cutlist...but it is not easy....
Initially create a small sample file by creating two parts and 2 materials. its not obvious but right mouse click on the default item and modify it, add etc. Note that if you need qty 4 of something it adds it as 4 separate line items. Once created, save this as a sample and open in notepad. Ultimately the modified 'body' of the sketchup output is pasted into this.
1. sketchup needs the cutlist plugin installed and run, with the save csv option enabled (doesn't need the cutlistplus format).
2. Open this csv file in excel, open office calc etc and manipulate it so that it is in the format shown in the image below (right hand side, left hand side shows the same imported into cutlist). You need 3 columns and the order needs to change from the original CSV file - description is last and the length and width columns change order.
3. Set the fields to show 3 decimal points in each cell (without this my import failed but it may have been because I had not changed from the default fractions to decimal).
4. if there are any multiple parts, add the qty info at the end of the description
5. save the file as a csv or txt file and open in notepad. Use search and replace to change the comma separators to space and then replace the quotes with nothing. merge into the format from the sample, add any materials lines you need and save
6. in cutlist open the file - if there are any errors it will tell you but u cannot abort (so test on a small number of items!)
7. Any descriptor that has a qty >1, right mouse click and add duplicates.
8. Run the solution. My example ended up with 49 components and it said it would only try the first one million solutions - it was running at approx 60 per second so would take 5 hours!! It had found 3 solutions in the first few minutes but these were very poor.
Given that all the above only works for one material type and the time it takes to convert, for anything significant buy a professional program.
has anyone has found a quicker/easier way ??
Initially create a small sample file by creating two parts and 2 materials. its not obvious but right mouse click on the default item and modify it, add etc. Note that if you need qty 4 of something it adds it as 4 separate line items. Once created, save this as a sample and open in notepad. Ultimately the modified 'body' of the sketchup output is pasted into this.
1. sketchup needs the cutlist plugin installed and run, with the save csv option enabled (doesn't need the cutlistplus format).
2. Open this csv file in excel, open office calc etc and manipulate it so that it is in the format shown in the image below (right hand side, left hand side shows the same imported into cutlist). You need 3 columns and the order needs to change from the original CSV file - description is last and the length and width columns change order.
3. Set the fields to show 3 decimal points in each cell (without this my import failed but it may have been because I had not changed from the default fractions to decimal).
4. if there are any multiple parts, add the qty info at the end of the description
5. save the file as a csv or txt file and open in notepad. Use search and replace to change the comma separators to space and then replace the quotes with nothing. merge into the format from the sample, add any materials lines you need and save
6. in cutlist open the file - if there are any errors it will tell you but u cannot abort (so test on a small number of items!)
7. Any descriptor that has a qty >1, right mouse click and add duplicates.
8. Run the solution. My example ended up with 49 components and it said it would only try the first one million solutions - it was running at approx 60 per second so would take 5 hours!! It had found 3 solutions in the first few minutes but these were very poor.
Given that all the above only works for one material type and the time it takes to convert, for anything significant buy a professional program.
has anyone has found a quicker/easier way ??
