Optimized nesting for fabrication

I have a series of object which I want to arrange in the most optimized way in order to send them for fabrication. The aim is to use as less material as possible so the denser the packing the better. I searched online and in the forum and apart from RhinoNest I couldn't find anything that suits the case. As the geometries have a lot of cavities packing in the logic of rectangles is not efficient. Intuitively I can try doing this manually but its not the same.

Is there any way I could arrange the objects in a very efficient way?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by martyn hogg on August 21, 2015 at 9:42am

I think there are some nesting components for Grasshopper somewhere but I had a quick search and couldn't find the one I was thinking of.

Nesting usually takes all the shapes and tries every combination of nests until it settles on the most efficient use of material. More complex nesting software can take into account certain constraints (sometimes you want to restric the orientation of shapes to keep material grain / pattern consistent for example)

It is usually a very slow process and unless you are nesting hundreds of parts, it is often quicker and more efficient to do it manually because the human eye is very good at this sort of problem, whereas computers have to take the dumb, try-every-which-way approach.

There was a set of tools posted on this forum once though but I can't find it now! Keep searching!

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Sheridan on March 21, 2017 at 3:21am