Trenches / Rebates in Wood Panels - CAM (Inventor)

[jamie.siddons]

We recently purchased The Product Design & Manufacturing collection for our bespoke woodworking company, however we are struggling to CNC program anything. I was wondering if anyone could help us?

NESTING UTILITY:

- This does outside and inside cuts, but not trenches and rebates. For example; we very often put trenches in the middle of panels between 1 - 20mm deep, but not all the way through the panel. The nesting utility seems geared towards metalwork, and isn't able to do trenches.  

HSM CAM:

- The CAM software looks good, but there is no nesting facility (unless you use the above which doesn't work!), and I don't believe its very time efficient CNC programming each individual panel one by one. 

We currently work with AutoCAD, and use layers to show the depth of a shape. For example; if we had a trench in the middle of a panel at 5mm deep. We would put it on the "CNC 5mm Deep" layer. Then when we put this in 2D CAM software, we are able to see and select the 5mm trenches, and program them 5mm deep. 

I was wondering if anyone had a solution to this issue? The only way we can think of solving this issue is by purchasing 3D CAM software (AlphaCAM), which is roughly £10000! 

Any help at all would be much appreciated. I've attached an image to show an example of a panel we would use. 

Thanks!

[CCarreiras]

Hi!

You're right, nesting utility is more geared to metalworks.

Regarding  the trench, i think is possible to use some tools in hsm to do that, using the nesting result in 3D and add some workarounds.

But.... if your work has a lot of "wood specifications" (claws, etc)... maybe the way to follow is the alphacam.

[jamie.siddons]

Hi Carlos, 

Thanks for your quick reply! 

Could you elaborate on what you mean by 'Nesting Result in 3D?' I can't seam to find any such function?

Our projects are quite complex and can have 100's of parts on them. However, we only simply rebate and trench panels. We don't need any complex clamps / claws or tools. 

Thanks! 

Jamie

---

@CCarreiras wrote:

Hi!

You're right, nesting utility is more geared to metalworks.

Regarding  the trench, i think is possible to use some tools in hsm to do that, using the nesting result in 3D and add some workarounds.

But.... if your work has a lot of "wood specifications" (claws, etc)... maybe the way to follow is the alphacam.

---

[mcgyvr]

Yep.. Nesting Utility currently only supports "through cut" sheet metal type parts and does not support pockets(trenches)/rabbet(rebates) and other non-"through" functionality at this time..

They have said that they plan to include that functionality in the future but the "when" is not publicly known.

I haven't used the nesting utility (because its so new/infant) but my understanding is that you can get a 3d output of the generated nest BUT your trenches/rebates would have already been stripped out and would need to be remodeled which is an inefficient process..

Did you do a demo of all of this before purchasing to see what it can/can't do at this time?

[CCarreiras]

I mean... you can export the nesting result as a 3D model, then you can use it as a ordinary 3D model in hsm and add to it milling operations.

Check this video at 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5I51IZNYY4

[jamie.siddons]

---

@CCarreiras wrote:

I mean... you can export the nesting result as a 3D model, then you can use it as a ordinary 3D model in hsm and add to it milling operations.

Check this video at 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5I51IZNYY4

---

I'm still not sure that this would work either? As soon as i import anything into the Nesting Utility, it flattens the parts and removes the trenches. Putting the trenches back into the exported 3D model would be a pain as we have hundreds of parts with trenches. Unless i'm mis-understanding!? 

Perhaps AlphaCAM would be the best option.

I'm wondering if we could get someone to write some sort of script for us as a work around. We could:

- Lay out the parts on a 'Drawing' (paperspace)

- Have a script understand the depths of any trenches and put them on a particular layer like .CNC 5mm Deep for example. (I can manually do this by selecting a line and putting it on a particular layer, but it's time consuming). 

- Export as a DXF, and then we can use this in our current CAM software. 

I'm not sure how easy that would be, I have no idea what you can do with Inventors API!

Thanks!

[mcgyvr]

---

- Lay out the parts on a 'Drawing' (paperspace)

---

Do you mean you will manually lay out the parts on a drawing? (aka a manual nesting process?)

If so then just do the "manual nesting" in an Inventor assembly file with all of the parts and then use HSM CAM to program it..

If you need automatic nesting then at this time Inventor/Nesting utility is the wrong program for your needs..

[jamie.siddons]

---

@mcgyvr wrote:

---

- Lay out the parts on a 'Drawing' (paperspace)

---

Do you mean you will manually lay out the parts on a drawing? (aka a manual nesting process?)

If so then just do the "manual nesting" in an Inventor assembly file with all of the parts and then use HSM CAM to program it..

If you need automatic nesting then at this time Inventor/Nesting utility is the wrong program for your needs..

---

Yes we could do that, although I've always found it very tricky to layout/move/rotate parts in an assembly. You have to use the mating tools and such, which wouldn't be as quick as the latter. Ideally we would be able to nest our parts! I hadn't realised how tricky it is to get CNC parts out! 

Thanks for your replies. 

[mcgyvr]

If you don't want to just switch software at this time then...

My suggestion (for now) is to manually nest parts in an assembly to allow you to leverage all of the HSM CNC functionality and HOPE that the nesting utility is going to be improved in the near future to support milling operations,etc... and not just sheet metal applications..

I hate putting HOPE in Autodesk though.. Maybe there is a beta program for Nesting that you can be part of to hopefully "push" them along.. (Good luck)

And a tip for manually nesting.. Leverage the power of parameters and set yourself up a "part_spacing" or whatever parameter that you use over and over again for your constraints to allow you to change that once and have the entire nest update automatically should you need more spacing between parts.. And other parameters like "edge_spacing" or whatever is applicable to your processes..

[phillip.doup · Accepted solution]

Hello @jamie.siddons ,

I believe the Nesting Utility already provides you with functionality you can use in the latest version. In this latest version, we introduced more functionality to help with 3D parts. Please have a look at these:

3D representation of input parts

We added visualization controls to show the input parts in 3D in the Nesting Utility:

Here's what that looks like for a part like you're describing:

Larger view to show it along with nested results

Zoomed view to show detail

This particular view I'm showing here is the 3D Compare that shows you what the extruded profile looks like along with the original solid model. Granted, this is only in the parts preview above the nests, but it helps show you the 3D model along with the geometry we are using in nesting. Ultimately nesting is a 2D problem, so eventually we end up needing and using a 2D representation of the part. This just helps you compare what we're doing in 2D with the original 3D part, if you have one.

Output to 3D models

Another feature we added in this release makes it possible to generate an assembly containing instances of the original 3D models, if there are any, rather than the solid models created via extrusions it was producing before. What this does is produce a model that has all of the fidelity of the geometry you started with. It doesn't show during the nesting preview in the Nesting Utility because 1) it's a 2D problem, so we're showing you the 2D results and 2) it's a ton of geometry to show on the screen at once for complicated nests and 2D performs much better.

Here's the UI for this export functionality:

For this part above, here's what an example assembly looks like:

This model can then be used in CAM directly, allowing you to use the trenches from the original models.

I hope this helps. 

[mcgyvr]

^^ There you go.. Looks like you just need to be using the latest version of Nesting and it should now support your parts as is..

The Hope is alive 

[jamie.siddons]

That's brilliant! Exactly what we need! Thank you. 

[jamie.siddons]

Hi Phillip, 

Thanks again for your help! The nesting solution absolutely works, and we have finally managed to get something out of Inventor! We are using the nesting program, and then exporting the result to AutoCAD. Here we can use our usual CNC software. We may look into using HSM in the near future, but we are currently having issues with .NC code as our CNC machine is quite old. 

I was just wondering though if you could perhaps help me with the below? 

- I can't seem to find out why the nested parts are falling below the 'CNC Bed' panel? I can't seem to find any sort of option to change this? I've attached some photo's to illustrate. 

- The other issue we have with this is that we often use a lot of flipped panels. If i'm working on side A, i want to be able to remove the trenches in side B. This is because when we export this into AutoCAD, the lines below show up on both sides, which is confusing. Can you think of a solution to this? Again I've attached an example to illustrate. 

Either way, these are relatively minor issues, so it's not a big problem. It would just be good to know if there is any sort of solution. 

Thanks!

Jamie

[phillip.doup]

Hello @jamie.siddons ,

I can help with these issues:

- I can't seem to find out why the nested parts are falling below the 'CNC Bed' panel? I can't seem to find any sort of option to change this? I've attached some photo's to illustrate. 

This is a bug that has been fixed and will be included in the next update (2020, I believe).

- The other issue we have with this is that we often use a lot of flipped panels. If i'm working on side A, i want to be able to remove the trenches in side B. This is because when we export this into AutoCAD, the lines below show up on both sides, which is confusing. Can you think of a solution to this? Again I've attached an example to illustrate. 

You mention that you're doing these things in AutoCAD. One option you have is to use DXF as the input for the Nesting Utility rather than trying to bring in the solid. When you do this, you have the ability to map data from the DXF to a particular purpose for nesting.

To be clear, I haven't tested this process because I don't have any suitable geometry handy, but it might work. You can put your geometry for features on the front and back on a layer separate from the outside geometry (put them on the same layer together) and then give the front a different color than the back geometry. You could then do a custom configuration in the nesting utility that maps this layer to "Extra Data", which should preserve the data through the nesting process, but not use it at all for nesting.

Then, instead of using the 3D model export, just export the results to a DXF. When you do this, you'll have the opportunity to do the same as the import in reverse, mapping the extra data to a particular layer in the DXF. You can then differentiate the geometry from each other in AutoCAD by them being on a particular layer separate from the outer geometry and being different colors (the color should be maintained).

Let me know if this works.

[Anonymous]

Hi Phillip, 

I work with @jamie.siddons and have also been playing about with this. I'd had a go with the 2019.2 version a month or so ago and it worked fine, but of course has the limitation that it can only deal with 2d shapes.

I cannot get this latest version to work properly - it takes several minutes to extract even 4 or 5 simple parts (they are the same files Jamie's copy processes in seconds), inventor goes in and out of a not responding state (although not causing particularly high CPU or memory usage)  and when i output the nest to a 3d model then 9 times out of 10 it only outputs the material with no part. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the nesting utility but am trying to avoid reinstalling inventor (which work fine in all other aspects).

Can you think of anything which might be causing this? Our PCs are virtually the same spec, apart from mine runs Windows 10 pro and Jamie's is Windows 7 home?

Many thanks

Andrew

[phillip.doup]

Hello @Anonymous ,

There should not be anything inherently different with the operating system. Can you confirm which versions of both Inventor and the Nesting Utility you are both using? 

[Anonymous]

Hi Phillip,

Mine is:

Inventor build 278, 2019.3

Nesting 2019.3   3.3.176

Jamie's is:

Inventor build 136, 2019

Nesting 2019.3   3.3.176

I've got a couple of spare hours so i am going to try a reinstall

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Hi Phillip,

No improvement from the reinstall....

But i then noticed that our workspaces were set slightly differently - mine to the root of the server, and Jamie's to an inventor folder on the server (where we save all the inventor part/assembly files) . Changed mine to the same and now it works ok.

I don't know if this is something you need to fix as our files are all in a couple of layers of subfolders within this Inventor folder so i can't see why it needing to deal with one extra folder level should have made so much difference?

Andrew

[AmyLiu]

@Anonymous  glad you have get the solution for this performance issue. I still want to reproduce it, so 

1. May I ask the project is Inventor Project or Vault project?
2. and what do you mean of the root of server, is server is a shared machine name? machine name is not allowed as a workspace, it should be a folder. that means it should at least a sub-layer of the root. it's better if you could share the image of your workspace location.
3. and what file type you used to do extract, and can you go to Sources dialog, check column "Provider" to see what is it?

thanks,

Amy

[Anonymous]

Hi Amy,

In answer to your questions:

1. It is an Inventor project

2. The server - i mean a shared drive on a windows server. I've attached screenshot of my inventor home screen. It now shows M:\Inventor - before it was set to M:

3. The parts all say Generic Cad next to them - is what you mean by provider?

Best regards

Andrew