Orientation and Packaging - Nesting

[TylerJ804]

Hi there,

I'm trying to get the Nesting suite to function properly for me. I'm using Fusion to run my CNC for custom cabinetry. In the past I've used Mapboards successfully despite how incredibly slow it can be.

I'm running into several errors, one of which is the grain direction function; from what I've read you have to disable all of the rotation

degree options in your package settings, but this results in an error that states that the majority of the parts require a bigger packaging. If I enable rotation settings, then this error goes away. NONE of the parts are bigger than the sheet I'm attempting to nest onto.

I use JoinerCAD Materials for my parts to keep track of grain direction, could this be part of the problem some how? Is there a material in Fusion which will easily identify grain direction better than JoinerCAD?

If I negate the parts that are missing with the above error, I still have parts that aren't oriented correctly despite all rotation options being turned off. Is there some sort of setting or rule which determines which direction a part will be oriented in on the nest? 

I've attached a screen grab of the problem I'm having, you can see the parts on this sheet that I'm having the errors with. This is a 3000x2000mm sheet in attempt to solve the problem; I normally cut 4x8s on the router.

I have a commercial license if anyone needed to know.

I appreciate any help I can get!!

Thank you!

[phillip.doup]

Hello @TylerJ804 ,

There are two places that grain orientation is controlled. First, there's grain on the material here: 

This specifies the orientation of the grain relative to the "length" of the material. So, say you have a 4'x8' sheet of plywood and the grain runs along the length, you can have a material grain of 0 so long as your packaging is defined where the length is 8' and the width is 4'. This is also the X direction as it will be in the resulting sheet manufacturing models. 

Next is the grain on the parts themselves, and this might be a little tricky. 

This is tricky because the 0 degree is relative to X in the 2D representation of the part. We create a 2D representation of the part for nesting purposes, either by using a plane you select in Nest Preparation or by the planar face with the largest area. The point is, the X in that pane may have nothing to do with the X in 3D. You may just have to come into this dialog and set the orientation if you see it rotated incorrectly on the nest result. 

Finally, the parts not fitting on the sheet is likely due to the trim and frame specified on the packaging and material. 

Nesting uses the larger of the trim and frame for padding around the edge of the sheet. If your part plus 2x the frame is bigger than the sheet, it won't fit. In this case, my frame is 10mm, so if the part size plus 20mm is bigger than the width of the packaging, it won't fit.

[TylerJ804]

Hey Phillip!

Thanks for your response! My settings are as follows -

Frame Width - 3mm

Trim(All) - 3mm

Spacing - 8mm

The parts I'm having issues with are 24"Wx71"L, the 71" will orient in the Y rather than the X

If I enable all of the rotation options in the packaging menu(90, 180, 270), then it nests very nicely with all of the parts on the sheets, but the grain will be completely random(Two identical parts will be oriented in different directions on the same sheet). If I disable all of the rotation options, I get 4 parts that are oriented longways in Y instead of X, which doesn't allow them to nest.

You're saying the solution is to rotate them in Component Sources? Am I still able to rotate individual parts in component sources, if my packaging rotation settings are disabled?? I would test this myself but my work computer doesn't have the gusto to Nest in acceptable amount of time when there are things to do!

Just to be clear, the orientation of a part in the Design workspace has absolutely no bearing on the Nesting suite, correct?

Thank you for the reply!!

[phillip.doup]

Hello @TylerJ804 ,

There are different concepts here that you should be careful not to conflate.

1. The rotation options ("90, 180, and 270") on the material constrain how the nesting engine is allowed to rotate the parts when trying different positions and orientations during the nesting process.
2. The same rotation options can be set on a part-by-part basis by "unbinding" in the Component Sources and toggling as you wish. Again, this just tells the nesting engine whether it can rotate the part by those angles or not.
3. The Material Grain set on the material controls the orientation of the grain relative to the length of the material. This determines the angle at which "no rotation" is on the sheet, so if you have all of the rotation options disabled, your parts will be oriented at this orientation (provided the next options is zero). 
4. The Orientation in the Component Sources is the orientation of the grain relative to each part, and you can set an orientation on a part-by-part basis. This is the final piece that is used to determine where "no rotation" is for this part. 

How this comes into play is as follows:

1. Wood grain might be OK to rotate 0 or 180 degrees (because the grain is symmetrical), but not 90 or 270 as the grain would be perpendicular to what you want. These options give you control over that.
2. For some parts, maybe those on the inside of a cabinet that aren't visible, the orientation of the grain on that part might not matter, so you can "unbind" and check all of the orientations for those parts to give them more freedom to rotate.
3. The material grain allows you to handle wood whose grain is along the width instead of the length (i.e. 90 degrees), but it really could be any orientation. Some composite materials may have 45 degree orientation, for example.
4. The part orientation is really sensitive to how the part is defined and how it gets "translated" to 2D. We're starting from a 3D solid and producing a 2D shape for nesting. That shape is generated either using a plane that you select (via the Nest Preparation in Design->Tools ribbon) or if no plane is specified, we use the plane for the planar face that has the largest area. Point is, the X is relative to this plane, and has nothing to do with the X axis in the 3D coordinate system. The part-specific orientation allows you to adjust that part's rotation so that it aligns with the grain of the material as expected. This has nothing to do with the constraints above that limit the nesting engine from rotating this part, this has to do with the angle at which the part is considered to be not rotated at all.

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

@phillip.doupfacing the same issue, but cannot resolve the issue by use of your explanation. The problem:

My machine has a long (3000mm) Y axis, and a short (1500mm) X axis. When nesting without allowing rotation, the long side of the part always seem to become the X direction. The long parts need to be cut with the long side in the Y direction. I can change the part oriëntation in component sources. This works, but takes a lot of time when nesting a lot of parts. If i Change grain orientation in the packaging section to 90 (or-90) degrees, and leave the orientation in component sources at 0 degrees, Fusion still wants to nest the long parts with the long side in X. Hence, i do not understand what the orientation setting in the packaging section does at all. For me, the setting does not change anyting in my outcomes.

Is there any way to set the Y direction as standard "long" direction? Of course, I can allow rotation and change everyting manually on the parts that come out wrong, but this is a lot of extra work and introduces a source for potential manual error.

Best way would be to just give us a function to take over grain direction from the design, this would save so much irritation and work!

[phillip.doup]

Hello @Anonymous ,

You should be able to multi-select components in Component Sources to mass-edit them, so it shouldn't take much time to do that.

As far as the material grain orientation is concerned, that doesn't prevent nesting from rotating, it just defines where the grain 0 degree orientation is. If you want to prevent rotation, you need to then disable the 90 and 270 rotation options as well to prevent it from rotating. 

[MattWynn]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My machine has a long (3000mm) Y axis, and a short (1500mm) X axis. When nesting without allowing rotation, the long side of the part always seem to become the X direction. The long parts need to be cut with the long side in the Y direction. 

Is there any way to set the Y direction as standard "long" direction? 

---

Nesting will always try a placement of the part at it's design orientation, that is the 0 degree orientation.  

I would let nesting work with a material that is 3000mm in X and 1500mm in Y and then in the setup pick a work coordinate system that will put that 3000 side in the Y direction.

We are working on improving the mass edit on component sources.

[Anonymous]

@phillip.doupThanks will try mass edit

@MattWynn

Hi Matt, that's really strange, for me it definitely seems to not do that. I specifically pivoted the parts correctly in the desing to see if that would change anything, but the nest results were exactly the same: Fusion refuses to fit 2000mm long  sheets in the original Y direction, when I do not allowing rotation when nesting. It seems to pivot them when calculating nest shapes to fit the long side in X direction, which i have not been able to change.

Do you have any idea how to change this to force parts to keep their original oriëntation?