Being able to nest toolpath operations would be very beneficial for my day to day CAM use. Alternatively, using the pattern feature to flip every other instance 180 degrees and translate up the Y (essentially a nest) would help. Right now the pattern feature only creates patterns in a combination of 1 or 2 directions.
I use a CNC router to machine parts on sheet goods. The parts are long and narrow and I typically get 9 per sheet. Sometimes if the parts are wider or narrower I get 8 or 10, respectively. In these rare instances the toolpath pattern feature does work to "nest" across the sheet.
My current workflow is to copy the body, rotate 180 degrees, and manually nest it. I then use the rectangular pattern tool to make 5 copies of these 2 bodies for a total of 10 bodies. I then hide the 10th body as it typically doesnt fit.
To machine I select all 9 bodies and then for each operation involving selecting a contour I have to zoom in and out and manually select each contour on each body.
If we could nest toolpaths I would only have to select one body and one contour instead of 9 and 9. Not only would this save me time, but it would help decrease my file size. We are a production shop so I have one file with all our parts (50+) saved in it. Once I manually nest the bodies it is about 500. Now I have a component tree so there are no components with more than 10 bodies. If I could nest toolpaths then I would not need to have 500 bodies, but only 50.
The current workflow does work for me, this would just improve it. Below are some pictures of my current workflow.
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