Nesting Settings

Every setting lives in the nesting dialog's sidebar and is remembered between sessions. Settings are saved when you press Generate Nesting - pressing Refresh or switching scope before that reloads the last saved values, discarding unsaved edits.

Scope and stock

Selection Only limits the run to what is selected in SketchUp (it turns itself on if you already had a selection when opening the dialog). The badge shows what is included.

Stock Material picks the group to nest - one run covers one stock. The list shows how many panels each stock has, and a summary line under it reports the panel count, thickness and grain. A warning appears there when parts carry grain but the stock does not: those parts stay rotation-locked for nothing.

Panels are silently excluded when they have no stock assigned, and hardware is never nested. Panels with no face metadata block the run with a message naming them - fix those with the Face Painter.

Sheet sizes

The table lists the sheets available to the run: name, length, width, quantity and a grain override. Leaving Qty blank (shown as an infinity sign) means unlimited; a number caps how many of that sheet the run may open. The Grain buttons override the sidebar's default axis for that row only: A follows the default, the vertical arrow means grain runs along the sheet's length, the horizontal arrow along its width.

The table is rebuilt from the stock's catalog sizes each time you choose a stock (a stock with no sizes gets one unlimited 2440 x 1220 row), so pick the stock first, then edit sizes. Presets stores named sizes that persist across sessions and inserts them with one click. A preset keeps the name, size and grain but not the quantity, so a row inserted from one arrives unlimited - retype the count if you are nesting onto a fixed number of offcuts.

Spacing

• Edge Margin (default 20 mm) - kept clear on all four sheet edges. A 2440 x 1220 sheet nests as 2400 x 1180.
• Part Spacing (default 20 mm) - the gap between parts, measured edge to edge (true outlines in True Shape mode). This is the only gap the engine adds, and it must already include your saw kerf.

These two numbers move yield more than anything else: every extra millimetre of spacing is paid on both sides of every part.

How parts are packed

Nesting Mode

• True Shape (default) packs each part by its real outline, so chamfered, curved and notched parts interlock. Best yield, and the right choice for a CNC router.
• Rectangular packs bounding boxes. Faster and more conservative; for rectangular jobs it loses nothing.

Algorithm (Rectangular mode only)

• MaxRects - free placement anywhere, best rectangular yield, no cut lines.
• Guillotine (Panel Saw) - every cut runs edge to edge across the sheet, and the run records the cut lines for the saw operator (shown on screen, on printouts and in the DXF). Yield is lower than MaxRects because leftover L-shapes must be cut away rather than reused, but the layout is guaranteed sawable.

True-Shape Solver - Production is the default pipeline. The two Legacy solvers are kept for comparison and expose their own advanced options.

Preset (Production only) - how long the solver searches: Fast (~12 s), Production (~45 s) or Deep (~3 min). The budget bounds searching only - final placement always runs to completion, so a shorter preset never leaves a fittable part unplaced; it just may use an extra sheet. Very large or curve-heavy jobs fall back to Fast automatically.

Sort Strategy, Sheet Opening and Candidate Cap tune the search: which parts are placed first, whether a new sheet is opened largest-first or best-fit, and how many positions are tried per part.

Random Seed - 0 uses a time-based seed, so repeated runs can differ slightly. Any other number makes runs repeatable on the same machine.

Compact Layout and Heuristic apply to the Rectangular and Legacy solvers; the Production solver always compacts.

Grain and mirroring

Grain Mode

• Respect Per-Panel (default) - each panel keeps its own grain; grained parts are limited to 0 and 180 degrees (or 90/270 when the sheet's grain runs the other way).
• Force Along Length - treat every grained panel as length-grained.
• Ignore Grain - all parts rotate freely and become eligible for mirroring.

Default Grain Axis sets which way grain runs on the sheet, unless a sheet row overrides it.

An important default to know: a panel with no grain of its own, on a stock with no grain set, is treated as length-grained and cannot rotate. Setting the stock's grain to "none" in the catalog frees every panel that has no grain of its own, which regularly saves a sheet - panels explicitly set with the Grain Painter or the Components Manager keep their own value, so clear those to Auto as well if you want them free.

Allow Mirror lets asymmetric grain-neutral parts be placed as their mirror image so pairs interlock. Parts with machining on one face are never mirrored - flipping them would cut the grooves on the wrong side.

Output settings

Placement Origin, DXF Profile and DXF Rotation are described on the export page. Note that DXF Rotation also rotates printed sheets.

Auto-save Results (on by default) writes a .cnest file after every run - see Results and history.

Label Template is the text drawn on each part in the sheet view, the printouts and the DXF. Click a token chip to insert it; the preview updates as you type. Available tokens: {name} {type} {cabinet} {path} {length} {width} {thickness} {dims} {stock} {material} {area} {panel_face} {grain} {n} (part number on the sheet) and {sn} (sheet number).

This is not the same as the Label Printer, which prints physical labels with QR codes and barcodes.