Nesting

[jdawg]

I have multiple CNC machines and would love to see nesting. I currently use Alpha Cam, Router Cim, Xilog, and Holzher Hops to program all my different machines. I think Fusion is ripe for being able to tap into this sector of machining. The ability to share, and posts and all the other features have me chomping at the bit. I have made programs with it on one of my routers, but it would be great to create one nest, and be able to tool it and post depending on what machine I want to send it to. Huge time saver, since the actual nesting takes the most time finding the perfect nest, and its also frustrating not having the machine control in some cam packages (HOPS) to be able to do fancy machining

[Cave_Master]

VCarve does have a great nest tab, and a few other great features.

It did have some inadequacies which is actually what brought me to using
Fusion360 for CAM. Fusion now accounts for about 97% of the CAM work we
do in our shop while VCarve still has a tiny piece of the pie.

[OliverDownie]

Kip,

yeah, I'm trying to make the switch, I see the benefits, but for a lot of things VCP is just so fast, makes it hard.

Lot of my stuff is fairly simple so...

[jdawg]

I'm the same way with using Router Cim, I can make a nest and program it
very easily and have a lot of control how it machines each individual part,
which to me is very important since in my nests I need to get every sq/in
of material used up if possible and that last corner always seems to have
parts move due to one reason or another.

[malmquistm]

Please Nesting Please! 

[Anonymous]

Still waiting on this, and I'll add my 2 cents, here... 

Nesting should be like a view in the manufacturing section, were you pick the front face of your 3d parts and it lays them flat, if you go back to design it is still all 3d assembled so you don't lose your 3d view of your object, you don't copy paste parts like crazy to put things on a flat view, or sketch out of your flatten 3d parts which don't link to changes.

Like what the nester add-in does, but without loosing your 3d view of the model and adding a joint for each object, which by the way, when you have a model with ~200 different parts or more, kind of kills the timeline.

After that you can move your parts around in the nesting view to arrange them better (fusion could also help arrange the parts in a more magical way but that could be a future update).

Once you have your flat view then you can use normal cam features to pick a plane, or part by part and make your setup.

[smet_kim]

This will help already a lot. I'm also waiting

[jeff.pek]

I think you'll be happy with what you see ... soon.

  Jeff

[sjauquet]

Whoooohaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!

[Anonymous]

Since this was accepted a year ago, hopefully soon doesn't mean one more year XD

[daniel_lyall]

If it is like Inventors nesting it would be really good 

[taylorsizemore]

Just thought I'd also jump on here and say that nesting is going to be an amazing improvement. I can't wait to see what you all have up your sleeve. Fusion keeps getting better and better, thank you!

[balunist]

I want to share some related info on an update I’ve made to MapBoards Pro.    You might find it useful in your arsenal of tools. I’ve added the option to export the map created by MapBoards as an SVG file.  The following video shows this export being imported into Deepnest, open source software, to perform some pretty impressive nesting.  Nesting with MapBoards Pro

I’m well aware of the shortcomings when compared with the robust set of requirements stated here but again, view it as another tool to work with.   Many of those requirements will be addressed in future releases. Hopefully you will find the SVG export useful. It’s a first release and I’m totally open to suggested improvements.  

I know the integrated solution Fusion is working on has great potential to be the killer feature which is great news for you all.    Icarus

[TravisJoe]

My personal feelings is that software that often has the main focus on CNC mills is lacking when it comes to 2D and 2.5D profile cutting. In particular multi parts (especially if they are not from the same project) and sheet nesting. This is not ideal for a shopping building their own components, but just not good for job shops. Hopefully importing DXF and dealing with multiple parts/files from multiple sources. Otherwise it adds way too many steps. 

[jdawg]

Agreed. We import our dxf nested and cut from that. It's fairly quick and
doesn't require the extra steps.

[Anonymous]

I have had some recent phone conversations with Fusion
people and it is confirmed that the nesting feature is soon
to be released. I don't know any more than that, but I
would suspect that in seeing how powerful their other first
released features are (such as sheet metal) that the nesting
program will be a killer app.



They also mentioned that they are soon to release a brand
new feature/product related to Fusion but they weren't able
to expand on it yet. I'm pretty sure I know what it is,
based on our conversation at the time, but I can't say
either as I don't know for sure and I wouldn't want to spoil
their release information.. Just stay tuned.. 🙂

[jimoberlander]

Those are all interesting points.

Our workflow is entirely within Fusion 360. The lack of a nesting utility is a giant gap in the workflow process. While MapBoards is a good add-in solution, it still lacks some basic functionality. The idea that we should use one program for design, then export/import to Fusion completely negates the benefit of Fusion 360 as a turn key manufacturing package. And that Fusion 360 still requires an add-in for nesting diminishes the benefit of Fusion 360 as a turn key solution.

We do a LOT of parametric design. An internal nesting utility has the opportunity to take parametric design to a whole new level if it acts synergistically within Fusion 360. Imagine a nested layout shifting dynamically in response to parametric changes to the model. We have learned ways to spoof Fusion 360 to get a degree of this functionality. Yet, we are left wondering why, with a product like Fusion 360, developed by a company like Autodesk, we have to go to those lengths.

We hope to see nesting released soon!

[jbrewlet]

I've been a long-time subscriber of this thread. I went to Fusion 360 Academy in Portland in August and at the end, Autodesk announced that nesting is coming. I took a video which is posted on my Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/p/B0_zMOXgiQA/

Swipe to the last panel of the post, that should be the preview video they showed of nesting.

[Anonymous]

I the answer to why this hasn't been done is just a matter
of where Fusion needs to focus their resources. There are
so many aspects to this software and they have limited staff
to do it all - keep in mind that this software has grown
from scratch, they apparently haven't been doing cut and
paste from other software, this is all brand new, and it
takes time to develop it. So as result they seem to be
treating this as a triage, and working on what is the most
important to satisfy the maximum number of customers.



I agree though that they did drop the ball on drawings, as
that should have been at the top of the to-do list but it
fell through the cracks. At least we have a workable
drawing feature now.



All things considered I feel that Fusion 360 is really the
go-to software these days and very likely will eclipse
Solidworks in a very short period of time.



I own a copy of Solidworks 2016 and I recently installed a
demo of 2019. One thing that I noticed right away is that
the toolbox in Solidworks had not been upgraded since at
least 2014, nothing new same bugs same frustration....what
the hell are people paying for in that software? I
complained to them for 4 years (then gave up) that their
metric threads were all 55 degrees.. how do they miss
something that simple, and still refuse to fix it. I think
it's fixed now though, but I don't care as I'm transitioning
over to Fusion.

[Anonymous]

Very cool, thanks for taking the video. It looks pretty
powerful.

[jbrewlet]

Yeah. I was super excited.