Nest Parts into Odd Shapes
How to efficiently use your odd shape material with the nesting tool in Vectric software. This will allow you to use up all of your odd size scrap material! This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve Pro, Aspire, and Cut2D Pro.
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Video Transcript:
When you're working with CNC machines, a lot of times you are left with material that is odd shapes. So maybe you'll have a project you'll cut some parts out of, and then the material left over with is big enough to use for something. But sometimes it could be hard to enter that into your software to use that material up.
So in this quick tip, I'm gonna show you how to use this material, and nest parts into those shapes to be able to use up the most of your material. So this will give you great yield out of your material and still be able to nest them quickly. So I'm gonna show you how to do that for material already made.
And then I'm also gonna show you how to nest parts in areas that are left over after you already do some nesting. And for this lesson, I'm using version 11, so there were some changes to the nesting feature in version 11. This will still apply to older versions, but the layout may look a little bit different.
So keep that in mind if you're using an older version. So for this first example, we are working with a four foot by eight foot piece of material. And this is just for our example here, we are going to be nesting these parts down here. So we're first going to select all of those parts. And then we are going to the nesting tool.
And this will only be available in the pro versions VvCarve Pro, Cut,2D Pro, or Aspire. If you're using the desktop versions, you will not have access to this tool. So in this particular lesson, we are not gonna get too in depth on all of these settings here, we're mostly gonna be focusing on the nest boundary option. So I have these settings set up here to work with a quarter inch tool, and this is set to go really close together.
You can set this clearance higher, so the parts spread out further. But just for this example, we have these parts selected. We are going to add 15 copies of those. So we're gonna type in 15 and click apply. And now you'll see, it will create a copy with 15 of each of these parts. So if we zoom out and click preview, you could see now it's filled up the sheet with 15 copies of each part.
Now I'll show you a quick option. You can change to further optimize the nesting strategy. So right now you can see it fills up just about the entire sheet. And sometimes this way will work perfect for you, but sometimes your parts may not fit properly and you may want to do this a different way.
So you can go to the nest direction right now we're going along the X axis. If we switch it along the Y axis and click preview again, you'll see, now that changed the strategy and there are more to the bottom of the sheet and that gives us extra room at the top. So with that extra room on thetop. You could add more parts in there or use that extra material for a different project.
Okay, so let's click okay to accept this. And for this example, we are going to try to use up the remaining part of the sheet. So let's say you nested these parts and later on, you decided you wanted to add this star and you wanted 10 of these stars to fit up here on the top. Well, as it is right now, you cannot go back to that nesting tool and nest, just that star in that area without a boundary around there.
We could have done that before, if we knew we wanted 10 of those stars up there, we could have nested everything together at one time. And technically you could still do that by deleting all of these, except for one copy of each. But that's a lot of extra work as well. So in this example, what I'm gonna show you is how to use up that available space up here.
So what I like to do first is add a new layer. You will need a new layer for the boundary you're about to create. So we're gonna go up here, click add new layer, and you can even name it boundary. And I'm going to make this, the color red, so we know exactly what that layer is. Otherwise, if it's black, you may not know what layer it's on.
So we're gonna select that, to make it active. And what I like to do is draw a boundary around the available space up here. So you could use your draw line tool and freehand a boundary around there. Or another trick I like to do is select all of these shapes up here at the top. And you don't have to select all the shapes, just the ones at the top here that are touching where the boundary will be.
And you can go to the offset tool and we wanna go outwards and you could specify how far apart you want that boundary. So I'm gonna do half inch and I'm gonna create sharp corners and click offset. And now you'll see, we have a line, a half inch away from the edge of those parts. We're not concerned about the line at the bottom.
We're only concerned about that line at the top. So now we have to do a little editing to cut that away. So we're gonna close this tool. What I like to do is click the letter N to go to node editing and where the line stops and it crosses the edge of the material we're gonna do, we're gonna remove that.
So you can right click and click delete span to delete that line. And basically we're just separating it from the bottom section of the line. So over here, I'm gonna do the same thing, where it intersects the edge, I'm gonna right click and delete the span. Okay, now we're left with just that top section and that bottom section is separate.
So if we actually deselect everything, you could select that bottom line and just click the delete key on your keyboard to remove it. I will also delete these small little parts in here, we don't need as well. And these small parts here are connected to the rest. So what I like to do is delete those nodes and that will, will remain everything still connected in a shortcut to do that is to hover over the node and type the letter D.
And when you do that, it will start to remove all of those nodes and we can leave it just like that, where it's a little bit of an angle, but that's still okay. I'll do the same thing down here, just hover over the node, click the letter D, and that will remove those. And now we're left with just this top line a half inch away from all of our parts.
Okay, so now we just have to finish off the top here, just tracing the edge of the material. So to do that, you go to the draw line tool, and I like to start over here on the left and I will snap just below where this line intersects and then I'll trim that later. So I'm gonna snap right there and then just snap up in the left corner, and then snap to the right corner and then come down and intersect this line as well.
And then right click to end the line. Okay, now we have a red line there going on the edge of the material and we just have these overlaps we have to take care of. So using the interactive trim tool, looks like the pair of scissors. Make sure that box is checked and just remove those two intersections there.
So just trim away the overhang and then click close. And now you should have a closed vector going around this area of the extra material. So now we are ready to nest any shapes we want in this area. So we can go back to the nesting tool. We want to select the part that we want to nest, which in this case will be the star.
You can add multiple copies, so let's say we did 10 copies and click apply, and then you can optimize your settings up here. But the important part here is where it says nest boundary. So right now, if we do not use the nesting boundary and we click preview, it's going to assume we are nesting from the full sheet. And you will see it will overlap our parts, but that's not what we want in this case, because those parts are gonna be cut out as well.
We want to nest it up here at the top. So technically you could probably use this top corner up here and click preview again, and that may work, but you will see, you may get some overlap. So that's why the nesting boundary is going to be important here. And that is what our red line is. So I'm gonna reset the preview.
We're back to our first star with 10 copies, and we wanna turn on this option, use bounds as layer. And the layer we're gonna select the boundary layer that we created. Now that red line is going to be our boundary where the star will not cross that line at any point. So we're going to click preview. And if this happens where it goes to a new sheet, That means it could not fit that in there properly.
So you may have to change some of these settings. So let's try changing it along the X and click preview again. And there we go that time it worked. And you could see, I also had the nest from in the top left corner, which works out great because that corner is nice and square. You could go from the bottom left corner, but it's going to want to put these parts closer to the bottom there, which really is no problem.
We can click preview, sometimes it'll fit in the sheet, sometimes they won't. So you could try different corners and different strategies. There we go that time it worked. And you can also adjust the settings at the top here as well, but you can see, you can keep playing around the settings and keep clicking preview until it works out the way you want it to.
You can even manually move some of these around later, if you need to. So for instance, we can click okay. And let's say we wanted this one to the left more because there's lots of room. You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move it over there. Okay, so that's the first example, how to use up some extra material that you have left over on a sheet after you already nest something.
Our next example, I'm gonna show you how to use an oddball size sheet. So if you're using version 11 or above, we're gonna go to the sheet option and click add new sheet, and it's gonna be the same size 48 by 96, which is a full sheet of material. And we're gonna double click on that to make it active. And sometimes you may have a sheet that has a cutout already made in it.
So if you do, you can actually draw what you have left and use that same technique, we just learned and nest parts into those oddball size sheets to use them up. And you can make it any shape you want and just make sure you put it on a separate boundary layer. So with our boundary layer active, I'm just gonna make up a sheet here.
I'm going to pretend that we made a sheet this size here. Let's say we had like an L shape cutout and another cutout up here, and then we go back to that original corner. So you can see, this is just an example, but this red area would be the sheet we have left over. And over here to the right of this, we're gonna pretend this is cut away where there's no material there.
So if we click close, make sure this is a closed vector. And like I said, you can draw any way that you need to, to match your sheet. Just make sure the measurements are correct to match what you're working with. Okay, and then you could take any parts you want and nest them in here. Just make sure you put them on a separate layer.
So we're gonna go to layer one to make it active. I'm just going to make some random shapes here. Let's make a star, we'll make a polygon and we can make a circle. Okay, so let's say we had a couple of those shapes. We select all of them, go to our nesting tool. We can select where we want to nest them from.
Let's go to the bottom left corner because that's our nice square corner. And we wanna make sure the nesting boundaries turned on with the boundary layer and we can add a number of copies. Let's see if we can fit 10 copies of each that will make 30 parts total. Okay, click apply and click preview.
And you'll see if it cannot fit, they will spill over into new sheets. Keeping that same orientation, where they still will fit in that shape we created, but you can see all these stars over here did not fit, so they spilled over. So that means we have to adjust our numbers here or our settings at the top. So if you click reset, that'll bring you back and just make sure our sheet two is active.
You can either double click on it in the 2D view or go to active sheets and click number two. And there we go we're back. Now we just wanna select our parts again. And I will adjust the number here, so let's try eight of each and click apply. And if you needed to make different copies of each right now, they're all eight because we selected them all at the same time.
Let's say we wanted 10 circles. We could select that by itself type in 10 and click apply and then hold shift and select everything else again. And you'll see now that has 10 and the rest have eight, so you can make different copies if you needed to. So now let's click preview and you'll see now we just had one star spill over.
So we're going to reset one more time, go back to sheet two, and we just have to change that number again, so that triangles pretty big, I'm gonna make that down to seven click apply and we'll see if they fit now. So we'll have eight stars, seven triangles, and 10 circles, click preview, and there we go now they all fit.
And now you could, uh, load that sheet onto your machine and use up the available area in that sheet so it does not go to waste. And you could see, we even have a little bit more room if you wanted to add some different parts in there. So these are the techniques I like to use, to use up the most of my material.
And a lot of times when you're working with a CNC, you will be left with odd shaped material. So this method works perfect for using up that material. So that's all for this quick tip, if you guys have any questions, just let me know, but make sure you like and subscribe for more.
So in this quick tip, I'm gonna show you how to use this material, and nest parts into those shapes to be able to use up the most of your material. So this will give you great yield out of your material and still be able to nest them quickly. So I'm gonna show you how to do that for material already made.
And then I'm also gonna show you how to nest parts in areas that are left over after you already do some nesting. And for this lesson, I'm using version 11, so there were some changes to the nesting feature in version 11. This will still apply to older versions, but the layout may look a little bit different.
So keep that in mind if you're using an older version. So for this first example, we are working with a four foot by eight foot piece of material. And this is just for our example here, we are going to be nesting these parts down here. So we're first going to select all of those parts. And then we are going to the nesting tool.
And this will only be available in the pro versions VvCarve Pro, Cut,2D Pro, or Aspire. If you're using the desktop versions, you will not have access to this tool. So in this particular lesson, we are not gonna get too in depth on all of these settings here, we're mostly gonna be focusing on the nest boundary option. So I have these settings set up here to work with a quarter inch tool, and this is set to go really close together.
You can set this clearance higher, so the parts spread out further. But just for this example, we have these parts selected. We are going to add 15 copies of those. So we're gonna type in 15 and click apply. And now you'll see, it will create a copy with 15 of each of these parts. So if we zoom out and click preview, you could see now it's filled up the sheet with 15 copies of each part.
Now I'll show you a quick option. You can change to further optimize the nesting strategy. So right now you can see it fills up just about the entire sheet. And sometimes this way will work perfect for you, but sometimes your parts may not fit properly and you may want to do this a different way.
So you can go to the nest direction right now we're going along the X axis. If we switch it along the Y axis and click preview again, you'll see, now that changed the strategy and there are more to the bottom of the sheet and that gives us extra room at the top. So with that extra room on thetop. You could add more parts in there or use that extra material for a different project.
Okay, so let's click okay to accept this. And for this example, we are going to try to use up the remaining part of the sheet. So let's say you nested these parts and later on, you decided you wanted to add this star and you wanted 10 of these stars to fit up here on the top. Well, as it is right now, you cannot go back to that nesting tool and nest, just that star in that area without a boundary around there.
We could have done that before, if we knew we wanted 10 of those stars up there, we could have nested everything together at one time. And technically you could still do that by deleting all of these, except for one copy of each. But that's a lot of extra work as well. So in this example, what I'm gonna show you is how to use up that available space up here.
So what I like to do first is add a new layer. You will need a new layer for the boundary you're about to create. So we're gonna go up here, click add new layer, and you can even name it boundary. And I'm going to make this, the color red, so we know exactly what that layer is. Otherwise, if it's black, you may not know what layer it's on.
So we're gonna select that, to make it active. And what I like to do is draw a boundary around the available space up here. So you could use your draw line tool and freehand a boundary around there. Or another trick I like to do is select all of these shapes up here at the top. And you don't have to select all the shapes, just the ones at the top here that are touching where the boundary will be.
And you can go to the offset tool and we wanna go outwards and you could specify how far apart you want that boundary. So I'm gonna do half inch and I'm gonna create sharp corners and click offset. And now you'll see, we have a line, a half inch away from the edge of those parts. We're not concerned about the line at the bottom.
We're only concerned about that line at the top. So now we have to do a little editing to cut that away. So we're gonna close this tool. What I like to do is click the letter N to go to node editing and where the line stops and it crosses the edge of the material we're gonna do, we're gonna remove that.
So you can right click and click delete span to delete that line. And basically we're just separating it from the bottom section of the line. So over here, I'm gonna do the same thing, where it intersects the edge, I'm gonna right click and delete the span. Okay, now we're left with just that top section and that bottom section is separate.
So if we actually deselect everything, you could select that bottom line and just click the delete key on your keyboard to remove it. I will also delete these small little parts in here, we don't need as well. And these small parts here are connected to the rest. So what I like to do is delete those nodes and that will, will remain everything still connected in a shortcut to do that is to hover over the node and type the letter D.
And when you do that, it will start to remove all of those nodes and we can leave it just like that, where it's a little bit of an angle, but that's still okay. I'll do the same thing down here, just hover over the node, click the letter D, and that will remove those. And now we're left with just this top line a half inch away from all of our parts.
Okay, so now we just have to finish off the top here, just tracing the edge of the material. So to do that, you go to the draw line tool, and I like to start over here on the left and I will snap just below where this line intersects and then I'll trim that later. So I'm gonna snap right there and then just snap up in the left corner, and then snap to the right corner and then come down and intersect this line as well.
And then right click to end the line. Okay, now we have a red line there going on the edge of the material and we just have these overlaps we have to take care of. So using the interactive trim tool, looks like the pair of scissors. Make sure that box is checked and just remove those two intersections there.
So just trim away the overhang and then click close. And now you should have a closed vector going around this area of the extra material. So now we are ready to nest any shapes we want in this area. So we can go back to the nesting tool. We want to select the part that we want to nest, which in this case will be the star.
You can add multiple copies, so let's say we did 10 copies and click apply, and then you can optimize your settings up here. But the important part here is where it says nest boundary. So right now, if we do not use the nesting boundary and we click preview, it's going to assume we are nesting from the full sheet. And you will see it will overlap our parts, but that's not what we want in this case, because those parts are gonna be cut out as well.
We want to nest it up here at the top. So technically you could probably use this top corner up here and click preview again, and that may work, but you will see, you may get some overlap. So that's why the nesting boundary is going to be important here. And that is what our red line is. So I'm gonna reset the preview.
We're back to our first star with 10 copies, and we wanna turn on this option, use bounds as layer. And the layer we're gonna select the boundary layer that we created. Now that red line is going to be our boundary where the star will not cross that line at any point. So we're going to click preview. And if this happens where it goes to a new sheet, That means it could not fit that in there properly.
So you may have to change some of these settings. So let's try changing it along the X and click preview again. And there we go that time it worked. And you could see, I also had the nest from in the top left corner, which works out great because that corner is nice and square. You could go from the bottom left corner, but it's going to want to put these parts closer to the bottom there, which really is no problem.
We can click preview, sometimes it'll fit in the sheet, sometimes they won't. So you could try different corners and different strategies. There we go that time it worked. And you can also adjust the settings at the top here as well, but you can see, you can keep playing around the settings and keep clicking preview until it works out the way you want it to.
You can even manually move some of these around later, if you need to. So for instance, we can click okay. And let's say we wanted this one to the left more because there's lots of room. You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move it over there. Okay, so that's the first example, how to use up some extra material that you have left over on a sheet after you already nest something.
Our next example, I'm gonna show you how to use an oddball size sheet. So if you're using version 11 or above, we're gonna go to the sheet option and click add new sheet, and it's gonna be the same size 48 by 96, which is a full sheet of material. And we're gonna double click on that to make it active. And sometimes you may have a sheet that has a cutout already made in it.
So if you do, you can actually draw what you have left and use that same technique, we just learned and nest parts into those oddball size sheets to use them up. And you can make it any shape you want and just make sure you put it on a separate boundary layer. So with our boundary layer active, I'm just gonna make up a sheet here.
I'm going to pretend that we made a sheet this size here. Let's say we had like an L shape cutout and another cutout up here, and then we go back to that original corner. So you can see, this is just an example, but this red area would be the sheet we have left over. And over here to the right of this, we're gonna pretend this is cut away where there's no material there.
So if we click close, make sure this is a closed vector. And like I said, you can draw any way that you need to, to match your sheet. Just make sure the measurements are correct to match what you're working with. Okay, and then you could take any parts you want and nest them in here. Just make sure you put them on a separate layer.
So we're gonna go to layer one to make it active. I'm just going to make some random shapes here. Let's make a star, we'll make a polygon and we can make a circle. Okay, so let's say we had a couple of those shapes. We select all of them, go to our nesting tool. We can select where we want to nest them from.
Let's go to the bottom left corner because that's our nice square corner. And we wanna make sure the nesting boundaries turned on with the boundary layer and we can add a number of copies. Let's see if we can fit 10 copies of each that will make 30 parts total. Okay, click apply and click preview.
And you'll see if it cannot fit, they will spill over into new sheets. Keeping that same orientation, where they still will fit in that shape we created, but you can see all these stars over here did not fit, so they spilled over. So that means we have to adjust our numbers here or our settings at the top. So if you click reset, that'll bring you back and just make sure our sheet two is active.
You can either double click on it in the 2D view or go to active sheets and click number two. And there we go we're back. Now we just wanna select our parts again. And I will adjust the number here, so let's try eight of each and click apply. And if you needed to make different copies of each right now, they're all eight because we selected them all at the same time.
Let's say we wanted 10 circles. We could select that by itself type in 10 and click apply and then hold shift and select everything else again. And you'll see now that has 10 and the rest have eight, so you can make different copies if you needed to. So now let's click preview and you'll see now we just had one star spill over.
So we're going to reset one more time, go back to sheet two, and we just have to change that number again, so that triangles pretty big, I'm gonna make that down to seven click apply and we'll see if they fit now. So we'll have eight stars, seven triangles, and 10 circles, click preview, and there we go now they all fit.
And now you could, uh, load that sheet onto your machine and use up the available area in that sheet so it does not go to waste. And you could see, we even have a little bit more room if you wanted to add some different parts in there. So these are the techniques I like to use, to use up the most of my material.
And a lot of times when you're working with a CNC, you will be left with odd shaped material. So this method works perfect for using up that material. So that's all for this quick tip, if you guys have any questions, just let me know, but make sure you like and subscribe for more.
