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Join Date: Jan 2009
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Nesting Program for Polyethylene Shapes

01/05/2009 2:34 AM

What we are doing:

- Multiple pattern pieces need to be hand cut and assembled from polyethelene foam sheeting (Plastazote in the UK as far as I know, the supplier here in South Africa is Sondor).

- We need to have the pattern pieces for each object arranged and printed onto the PE foam sheets using wide-format printing.

What I need:

- Find an entry level (**this is a once-off project**) nesting programme that can read my files easily (either Corel DRAW .cdr or AutoCAD .dwg) and assist with maximising material usage and minimising waste.

- So far I have been arranging components/sections manually on CAD and Corel. With the big volume of templates to be created and prototyped for this project I do need something that will streamline the process and save time.

I have looked at Turbonest and will be following up with them soon. Any other suggestions?

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Guru
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#1

Re: Nesting programme needed for organic/curved/polygonal shapes

01/05/2009 5:51 AM

Two suggestions come to mind.

Firstly, the "old" way would be to make direct contact with a clothing manufacturer who cuts their own cloth. They had optimising programs as far back as 1980 that should handle your files easily. (These included the direction of the weave pattern for the cloth.)

Second is to contact someone with "water jet" or some form of cutting or welding equipment. Their new software would also have optimising options and even if they didn't cut the parts for you could mark the outlines on their cutting tables.

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#2
In reply to #1

Re: Nesting programme needed for organic/curved/polygonal shapes

01/06/2009 4:42 AM

Thank you JaE, I appreciate the advice. I will look into it.

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Guru
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#3

Re: Nesting Program for Polyethylene Shapes

01/06/2009 5:09 PM

Hello m!a,

I searched for:

"Flat sheet cutting with Corel DRAW .cdr or AutoCAD .dwg drawing program".

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A1f4cfal1GNJFxcA3ERLBQx.?p=flat+sheet+cutting+with+Corel+DRAW+.cdr+or+AutoCAD+.dwg+drawing+program&y=Search&fr=yfp-t-501&ei=UTF-8&rd=r1

Please take a look at the search page and let me know if this is the kind of thing you want.

I realise there is some sites for cutting machines which you have. But these sites may also have the programs you ask about.

Good luck and have a great new year!............

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Guru
Engineering Fields - Electromechanical Engineering - Technical Services Manager Canada - Member - Army brat Popular Science - Cosmology - What is Time and what is Energy? Technical Fields - Architecture - Draftsperson Hobbies - RC Aircraft - New Member

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#4

Re: Nesting Program for Polyethylene Shapes

01/06/2009 6:42 PM

we have 1/8" aluminum cut by a contractor. apparently he uses this software for nesting. (I'm also told that it works best if your cad files lines are converted to polyline for this software.)

http://www.cadlink.com/products/signLab/

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Guru
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#5

Re: Nesting Program for Polyethylene Shapes

01/07/2009 5:12 AM

I looked at various free nesting programmes a while ago for a similar application although I never got round to trying any of them. Here are a couple that I remember.

Sheet Optimiser.

Astra.

There are a lot of programmes that will only handle rectangular shapes & a number of very expensive programmes that do this.

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babybear (1); chrisg288 (1); Just an Engineer (1); m!a (1); Nigh (1)

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