Layout View
Advanced Layout
The new Advanced Layout keeps the fast auto-pack as the starting point, then gets out of your way so you can finish the job properly.
Drag any part to any position on the sheet. Use the alignment tools to line up multiple parts cleanly. Grab the rotate tool and spin a part until it nests snugly inside an opening or against another part. You’re in control. The computer does the heavy lifting of the initial packing; you do the final, intelligent placement that only a human eye (and a bit of shop sense) can do well.
As we mentioned in the overview, each part has layout options, including
- Flip X
- Flip Y
- Allow Rotation
- Force Rotation
- Assembly Holes
Rotation
When "Allow Rotation" is enabled, the part packer will orient the part for the most efficient sheet usage. This may not be exactly what you want due to wood grain direction or other factors. But with this setting enabled, you can override whatever orientation was assigned to a part.
To do this
- Select the part either by clicking on it, or selecting it from the layout lists on the left.
- A rotation slider will appear at the bottom of the screen, use this to rotate the part to the desired angle.
The part packer is designed to get the best material usage super fast, but it's not aware of the true shape of your parts, only their actual bounding box. A bounding box does not account for interior cutouts, curved or sculpted edges or any other shape modification you have made using PartLab. To that end, think for the fast pack as a starting point. You can drag each part to a new position, a new sheet, a new orientation.
Alignment
Select more that one part, either by Shift Clicking, by Window selection, or by shift clicking items on the layout list, and an alignment toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen. You can use this to vertically or horizontally align items.
Moving Sheets
If your project spans more than one sheet, you can move a part to any other sheet that matches the material depth of the originating sheet.
- Select a part
- Press and hold the "M" key
- Drag that part to a new sheet
Exporting
If your target program doesn't support any kind of "smart" SVG import, or you need to update parts in your program without starting from scratch, you can export items and layers individually.
Press the "Copy" button at the top of the sheet list, select the layers you want to copy. Press Copy, paste into your target program. If you only want one part, hide the others, then copy and only the visible parts will export.