Loading…
A cut list optimizer takes the pieces you need and the stock you have, and works out how to cut one from the other. The result is a cutting plan: which sheet, roll or stick each piece comes from, where it sits, the order of the cuts, and how much material is left over.
NestSmart does this for sheet goods such as plywood and MDF, for roll goods such as fabric and vinyl, and for linear stock such as lumber, extrusions and pipe.
No. Open the optimizer and run a job without signing up; your work is kept in this browser. Signed-out jobs use the Fast effort mode and the free plan’s limit of 250 pieces per job.
An account adds saved lists of materials, stock and cut lists, projects, a history of every run you have made, and accepting offcuts into your stock.
Yes. Type dimensions the way they are written on a cut list: 24, 24.125, 24 1/8, 24-1/8 or 7/8. Every dimension is stored as an exact whole number of tiny units (1/16 of a micrometre), so 62 7/8 stays 62 7/8 from your list to the plan.
Inches, feet, millimetres, centimetres and metres are supported. Feet-and-inches in one value, such as 8′ 6″, is not; enter 102 inches instead.
Kerf is the width of material the blade turns into dust. A 1/8″ blade making ten cuts removes 1 1/4″ of material that no part can use.
NestSmart charges the kerf at every cut and draws it on the plan. It is reported separately from waste, so you can see what a thinner blade would save. In the workspace you set one kerf for the job. Through the API it can also be set per material or per stock item, and the most specific setting wins.
It searches for a very good one, and it does not claim to prove that no better layout exists. Finding a provably optimal cutting plan is impractical for real jobs, so the optimizer tries many packing strategies and keeps the best result by your chosen priority, such as least waste or fewest sheets.
Every plan, however it was found, is checked by an independent validator before you see it.
How much searching the optimizer does. Fast builds the layout with the core placement strategies and stops. Balanced and Thorough try more strategies and then spend extra effort improving the result, which matters most on large or awkward jobs.
Effort is measured in units of work rather than seconds, so a busy server never changes your result. The free plan includes Fast; Balanced and Thorough come with the paid plans.
Yes. The same inputs on the same version of the optimizer always produce the same plan, on any machine and at any time of day. Each run records the optimizer version that produced it.
A separate checker, which shares no code with the optimizer, re-derives the geometry of every plan from your original job: no overlaps, every piece inside its stock, kerf at every cut, grain and rotation respected, quantities and totals exact. A plan that fails is never shown to you and never counted against your plan.
Yes. Paste rows, or import a CSV or Excel (.xlsx) file of up to 10 MB. NestSmart proposes what each column means, shows you every column including the ones it did not recognise, and adds nothing until you confirm the mapping.
Yes. Every run produces a PDF of the whole plan and an SVG and a DXF drawing of each sheet, roll or stick. From the workspace you can also print the plan, step through it in the production view one stock piece at a time, and export CSV files of the cutting plan, the cut list, the stock summary and edge banding.
Yes. A piece can be allowed to rotate 90° or kept as entered, and a grain direction on the part locks its orientation to the material’s grain. Grain wins over the rotation setting. Pieces are never placed at 180° or 270°, so directional prints and pile fabrics keep their direction.
Mark which edges of each part get banding and choose a banding material. NestSmart totals the length you need and, if you give the banding a price, its cost, and shows the banded edges on the drawings.
Part dimensions are always the size you cut. Banding is recorded with the part and never changes the cut size, so enter your parts already sized for the banding you use.
For sheets and rolls, waste is the stock area used minus the area of the pieces and minus the kerf. Utilization is the area of the pieces divided by the stock area used. For rolls, the headline figure is the length of roll consumed, because that is what you pay for.
For linear stock, each stick is accounted for along its length: pieces, the kerf after each cut, and the drop at the end, which is either waste or an offcut worth keeping.
Pieces of stock left over after a job that are big enough to use again. You set the smallest size worth keeping; any leftover at least that big is offered as an offcut on the plan. Signed in, you can accept an offcut into your organization’s stock inventory, which projects and API jobs can draw on. Nothing becomes inventory until you accept it.
The free plan is available now and needs no card: up to 250 pieces per job and 5,000 optimization units a month, with the Fast mode. Paid plans with larger jobs and the Balanced and Thorough modes are planned; their prices are not set yet.
Yes. Everything the workspace does goes through a public HTTP API, and an organization can create API keys for its own systems. An embeddable optimizer lets you put NestSmart inside your own website.
Not answered here? The help center covers each part of the workspace step by step.