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3d nest nesting CNC CAM
troy_ostrander
Member Posts: 25 ✭✭
What is the state of nesting in Onshape?
e.g. Take 100 plus part model and arrange it on individual sheets for 3 axis CNC milling. See screenshot.
Can Onshape do this?
0
Best Answer
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MichaelPascoe
Member Posts: 2,671 PRO
Yes. Auto Layout by @lemon1324 can nest parts for you. Just click the + button at the top of the document to add it to your toolbar.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/576e01dbe4b0cc2e7f46a55d/v/f697250aa149b6846173f4b1/e/b72c231628b5affea0873222
Learn more about the Gospel of Christ ( Here )
CADSharp - We make custom features and integrated Onshape apps! Learn How to FeatureScript Here 🔴0
Answers
Yes. Auto Layout by @lemon1324 can nest parts for you. Just click the + button at the top of the document to add it to your toolbar.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/576e01dbe4b0cc2e7f46a55d/v/f697250aa149b6846173f4b1/e/b72c231628b5affea0873222
Learn more about the Gospel of Christ ( Here )
CADSharp - We make custom features and integrated Onshape apps! Learn How to FeatureScript Here 🔴
FeatureScript Auto Layout is a great start. Looks like it is bounding box type nest which is not so efficient. Its also missing part in part nesting. As Onshape ramps up its CAM capabilities nesting will be come more important. In the meanwhile…
What other nesting solutions are others using with Onshape?
Only now and then do I need nesting. Mostly for laser cutting, if I don't just leave it to the laser booth to do the appropriate nesting for the sheet they have in stock (which may already be missing some areas). So, nesting actually makes little sense within my own CAD document.
Nesting FS does only work on the part studio level. I think that is an issue.
If I need ultimate control, I usually create a new nesting assembly tab in which I import a sketch of the sheet or block and then insert my parts as needed (e.g. oriented relative to the grain or surface pattern). That way, I get a reliable list (BOM) of the actual nested parts, and they stay connected to the CAD model, in case I make changes. It requires manual work, though.
If I could make a wish, I'd wish that there'd be a nesting tool that searches an assembly for parts that were tagged for e.g. milling, routing or laser cutting, have a common material assigned, and put these on a sheet of user specified material and size in another tab. It would of course update after changes have been made to the parent assembly and it would have an option to add spare parts to the nesting.
We're a custom cabinet manufacturing company that heavily relies on Onshape. We've built 100+ custom features that kind of creates a superimposed cabinetry system in Onshape. One of the things we've done with this is we've been able to tag parts using FeatureScript attributes. In a way similar to what you're suggesting, we've made a copy of the Auto Layout custom feature and edited it so we can use it with the tags that we've created (we've also factored in grain direction).
Now I'm speaking using a bit of blackboxing, as there's a lot under the hood that makes this work. But I'd imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to make a custom feature that adds the tags you want, and then edit Auto Layout to work with those tags.
chadstoltzfus@premiercb.com
Echoing what @chadstoltzfus did with their company, we've got a fork running of Auto Layout that separate parts out by material and thickness into their own nests for export and another two prototypes being cooked up for sheet metal and frames that separates parts by attributes attached to the bodies. I'll probably go public with some version of these at some point but the current iteration has a lot of company specific assumptions imposed on them for our own export procedures.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | MeddlerHi @chadstoltzfus,
Can achieve part in part and true shape level of nest efficiency with your Auto Layout Mod?
Best, Troy
We haven't done anything with that but I'm sure it's possible, the sorting algorithm they use is right in the code so with some tweaking what you're looking for can be done. We've tweaked the algorithm to measure parts differently than the original algorithm, but I think the original does use bounding boxes to gauge part sizes so the part in part nesting would probably require some heavier refactoring. Generally speaking, I like to tell people that if you can do something in a model, you can do it with FeatureScript.
chadstoltzfus@premiercb.com