Tutorials PartCraft help Walkthroughs
Keep and reuse offcuts
After a nest, what is left of each plate becomes a numbered remnant in a stock list; the next nest uses the remnants first, then full plates.
Written for PartCraft 0.7. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
When you nest parts on plates, each plate's usable leftover (not slivers) can be kept as a remnant: a numbered outline (R-0001, R-0002 …) with the material, the thickness, its size and the job it came from. The list is saved with the file and can be saved as a CSV.
Use them again
Enter the material and thickness, leave Use remnants first on, and nest. Remnants of the same material and thickness are tried smallest first; the parts that fit go on them, inside the remnant's own outline and clear of its edge; what does not fit goes on new plates. The job report says which remnants were used and what was left. With Save the leftovers as remnants on, Add this job to the stock then writes it into the stock list: a remnant that was used is marked Used (with the job) and not offered again; what is left of it becomes a new remnant that remembers its parent.
What counts as a remnant
The leftover is measured with the spacing you set (no part is closer than that to a cut). Strips narrower than a twentieth of the plate and pieces smaller than 2 % of it are scrap; change both limits if your shop keeps smaller pieces. Holes inside parts are the parts' own and are not kept. A roll has no remnants.
In the drawing
The DXF of a nest draws each remnant's outline on the layer REMNANTS with its number in the middle, so the pieces can be marked when they are cut.
Not built yet: grain direction of a remnant, a bar-code or label sheet, remnants of rolls, stock shared between projects.