Sketch Up – Can it layout Patterns?

[Derrick White]

I have done a tent design in Sketchup (a few actually) and I am about to buy the material.  I am wondering if there is a feature or efficient way to layout the pattern pieces to minimize the amount of cuben I need to buy.  It would seem pretty easy for a piece of software to take the panels and fit them onto the shortest length of 54″ wide material.

Thanks in advance,

Derrick

[George F]

I don’t remember the name but I found an extension that would unfold a drawing to make it flat. From there I was able to separate the segments (explode?) and then move them around like a puzzle to get the best fit. Sorry I don’t have the details but it is doable.

[William S]

There are a couple of extensions that I have seen that look promising, though I have tried neither. Search for Sketchup and Flattery or Flatten.

[Roger Caffin]

Any drawing program can be used to layout patterns. But YOU have to move them around. This you should be able to do easily enough.

There is NO solution to the general problem of optimal layout of multiple patterns on a finite area. In technical terms, it is an NP-hard problem with no solution.

In more practical terms … I was a consulting expert on this in a court case many years ago. Once I explained the above to to the QC, his eyes lit up. Home and hosed! The defense, who had promised such a program, settled on the court steps – and for close to 7 figures if I remember correctly.

Cheers

[Ken M]

Placing pieces on a sheet for optimal material use is called “nesting”.  There is special software for doing this.  Example: cutting multiple sheet metal parts with a laser or water jet.

For a seat of the pants solution for a bunch of dissimilar shapes…  Print out all the flat layouts to the same scale…cut them out with scissors…. arrange them on a paper that is 54″ (to the same scale).  Hint,  Add an extra shape that is 54″ long to use as a reference.  Arrange the pieces for the best nesting.

This method at our company was refered to as making “paper dolls”.  It was often faster than trying to manipulate shapes in a cad program.

-KenM

[Roger Caffin]

When I was asked to assist I was told the nesting SW was for arranging patterns on sheet metal to make buckets. OK, whatever.
What I was NOT told up front was that the ‘sheet metal’ was 15 – 20 mm thick steel plate, and the ‘buckets’ were for massive mining machines. The steel was kinda expensive … Yeah, big laser cutter, maybe a Trumpf.

Cheers
Roger

[Sam Farrington]

“It was often faster than trying to manipulate shapes in a cad program.”

Thank heavens. Not feeling quite so much the dinosaur any more.

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