[CLOSED] Call for Feedback: Nesting extension preview

[javiar]

Hi all, 

I'm excited to introduce Nesting functionality in Fusion 360 as an Extension Preview. To try this, go to Preferences > Preview Features and enable "Nesting in Manufacture".

Preferences > Preview Features > Nesting in Manufacture

If you’re cutting a large number of parts out of flat sheet stock with varying dimensions and prices, Nesting is a crucial piece of the workflow to help eliminate guesswork and minimize waste. “Nesting in Manufacture” – the new extension preview in Fusion 360 includes integrated, automated, and associative nesting capabilities with material, thickness, and quantity detection that will help optimize the arrangement of parts - both sheet metal and non-sheet metal - on flat raw material in preparation for cutting operations.

It will enable you to generate nests from your Fusion 360 designs and create toolpaths and NC code to drive your CNC machines – end-to-end seamless workflow all within Fusion 360. As you make model changes, the related nests will get marked “out-of-date” and you can update these to reflect the latest model changes. You may create multiple nest studies with varying inputs such as part quantity, rotation constraints, available sheet sizes, etc. and then compare the results to identify best solution to manufacture or to quote for your customer. It also includes automatic nest reports which you can save and share in PDF format.

While the nesting workflow is ideal if your designs are already in Fusion 360, we completely understand the need to support your DXF files. You can use the new app, DXF Import Utility now available on the Autodesk App Store, to simplify the process of importing your DXF geometry into Fusion 360.

Check out the Nesting extension preview and let us know what you think. You may use the comments section below to post your feedback and questions.

For more details, see help documentation. Here's a sample data set to help you get started.

[MattWynn]

great intro vid from Portland CNC here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH3RhTTp30k 

[Anonymous]

Like the new preview feature for nesting!  Watched Portland CNC video on it, and have created a simple test part to play with it.  I'm running into a bug where I cannot select the nested part contours in a 2d cutting profile.  When I click contour selection on the geometry tab, the first contour I select causes the entire screen to go red and I cannot add any more pieces to the chain. 

[MattWynn]

@Anonymous for 2d profile, I recommend selecting by face, not contour.  You can use 'select same plane face' to select all the faces and all the contours with one click.

[Anonymous]

Thanks - tried that, but screen goes all red and cannot see the faces to click.  This was a 3" rectangle extruded to .125" thick as a sample part - about as simple as I could make it.  Wanted to cut out 12 of them - but I can't select them to add to the cut profile.  Select all same face will select those on the outer part of the nest pattern only.  It's a weird bug...maybe graphics card?  I'm running a 1080ti Nvidia.

[nikitarubtsov]

Hi! It is so great to see this long awaited & so powerful feature in fusion 360 preview! However it turned out not so easy for me to figure it out how to use it) I've tried many times, but so far i am not able to position my parts the way i want in relation to material grain. I am sure thgere is so many places i can select part orientation just so it can be effective for every type of workflow, but now i am completely stuck) Though i still can put out certain questions:
1) when i select material grain angle in "materials and packaging" it is material grain direction in relation to what?
2) almost same question about part orientation: part is alligned corresponding to material grain direction and part's longest side? or part positioning in original design?

There is one more thing. When i generate nest, Fusion changes color of every single component is layed out, making it difficult to figure it out which is what.  Moreover when i regenerate nest, it is changing colors again, making my adjustments guesswork a pure lottery(

Here is a file. Trying to allign all the longest part's sides to the shortest side of the material sheet. You can see tht not all the "h" shaped parts are positioned in the same direction. 

Appreciate any help!

[javiar]

@nikitarubtsov ,

The 'Material grain' value in the Process Material Library is typically 0 or 90 degrees and this indicates grain on your stock material when it is placed on the machine. The 'Orientation adjustments' determine allowed rotations for that material. For example, if you would like your parts nested along a certain wood grain (along length of material) then you may leave the material grain = 0deg, uncheck "Rotate 90" and "Rotate 270". This will only allow nesting at 0 and 180 degrees, ensuring grain alignment.

The Component Sources dialog has an 'Orientation' value which allows setting the Orientation of the part relative to the material grain. This in combination with the material grain from Process Material Library determines the 0-degree orientation of the part on the nest.

That being said, it seems that the 'Material grain' (Process Material Library) is currently not working as intended. You may leave this as 0 deg for now. I'll request the dev team to take a look at this. In the meantime, please use the Orientation field in Component Sources dialog. The 'Orientation' value here sets the initial angle for that nestable component. Nesting engine applies the allowed rotation angles to this initial Orientation.

Regarding the colors - You can set constant colors by assigning desired Nesting Color to each material ID under Process Material Library and ensure that the shading (last option in tool palette at bottom of canvas) is set to 'Color by Material'.  I would like to highlight that the Nest workspace is soon going away (as stated in its description under Preferences). I recommend using the Nesting functionality within Manufacture workspace.

I downloaded your model but I am not sure if this is the correct version. I only see one leg in the model and a sketch for table top. Can you please verify and re-share a more appropriate version?

Ravi J

[carl.j.barker]

All this is coming from a sheet metal perspective. I don't use Timber.

First flat patterns don't honour the material type. Sheet metal parts without a flat pattern are ok.

Next when creating a study the component names are ignored.

When running the study I spend far too long looking at this.

Finally Package names and Nest name need some love. Personally I'd like packages to take the material type and sheet size and make a label from that. 

Just having PACKAGE 1, PACKAGE 2 listed in available is pretty meaningless.

Nest names also a bit ambiguous, Material type would be better.

Will require a library of sheet stock held that the nester chooses from and only from, Looks like this is been worked on, but damned if I know how it works.

[jdavis816]

Is adding the ability to control part qantities from a spreadsheet (for example, a CSV) something that is being considered? It is rather tedious to manually set part quantities when using dxf files, or any case when you are nesting more than just parts contained wothin a single model, and I think it is very common for most people to have spreadsheets already dictating quantites, materials, sizes, etc.

[rpicinic]

Starting to like the nesting environment....even with its few quirks.

1.) I've had some graphical issues when creating a large qty of components nested on multiple sheets. 

2.) Newest issue I have may not be totally related to nesting but would be something useful when nesting.....Scribe lines of sheet metal flat patterns go missing when moving from Design to Manufacturing. see attached image for example.

3.) Objects need to be forced to capture after converting nested sheets to mfg setup. Hard to explain until you see it in action. I can provide examples if someone wishes to Zoom me on this.

[robpicinic]

I made a short video showing what happens when I push a nest to setup.

[robpicinic]

https://autode.sk/3bpEfpE 

[MattWynn]

@robpicinic I have not seen it loose parts when viewing the setup.  Can you share your model?

Unfortunately no models selected message is normal the first time you create the setup.

[kaiZC7E2]

Im Arbeitsbereich "Verschachtelung" war es möglich Skizzen zu verschachteln. Der ist mit dem letzten Update entfallen. Im Arbeitsbereich "Fertigen" lassen sich nur Körper verschachteln, keine Skizzen. Exportiere ich eine Platte als DXF fallen die Skizzen, die darauf liegen weg. Wie kann ich Skizzen verschachteln und als DXF exportieren?

[MattWynn]

@kaiZC7E2 Das Verschachteln von Skizzen in DXF scheint für mich zu funktionieren

Sketch nesting to DXF still working for me.

[kaiZC7E2]

Mit dem neusten Update? Auf welchem Weg funktioniert es? Arbeitsbereich Fertigen - Verschachtelungsstudie - ...? Kann ich vielleicht eine Musterdatei sehen? Ich verzweifle daran.

[kaiZC7E2]

Ich habe eine sehr kleine Testdatei angelegt und ich habe damit noch einmal die Verschachtelung von Skizzen probiert. Das hat funktioniert, wenn auch nicht perfekt. Der Export der Platte scheint auch zu funktionieren, die DXF-Dateien sind aber defekt und nicht nutzbar. Können alle diese Probleme an der zu geringen Performance meines Rechners liegen? Programmabstürze, seltsame Verschachtelungen, defekte exportierte Dateien?

[carl.j.barker]

Multi sheet nesting doesn't seem to intelligently use available packages.

I have these packages selected for the study.

but the 2500x1250 is not used even though the parts on the sheet would fit.

Also the dimensions seem to be misaligned and missing for the part size. 

[infoM8PWE]

Hi! SO far I am digging this feature but: I have some trouble getting the parts the 'right side up', the way it does it now looks rather random and I dont seem to have much influence on them also not when using the edit nest feature. In that feature I try to mirror, but its greyed out.. In my materials I have 'double side selected'..

Also stuff gets selected in orange and it seems that it means an invalid input? I try to rotate the items so that they are with the chamfer up and with the triangle slot up as well.. my head hurts pls advise 🙂

thanks! Joost 

[javiar]

@infoM8PWE ,

Under the Design workspace, "Tools > Nest Preparation" allows you to specify the "right-side-up" if it wasn't auto-detected correctly. The Nest Preparation dialog can also be used to "Ignore" parts from being considered for Nesting. Since this is information is saved at the design level, you need not specify is each time you want to use this model in a new document. That being said, by default it should always place parts with the largest-area-face aligned with the bottom face of stock (i.e. pockets, dados, and other features would normally be facing up). It seems that is not the case in your screenshot. Can you please share your model?

The orange highlighting is to indicate that the values were modified and are different from what is set in the Process Material Library.

Regards,

Ravi J