Overview

The layout view is where all your hard work arranges for the next step in the process.

Here you can see the unpacked, 2D view, you expect your machine to cut or your going to cut with your machines. For a small project you are going to see one "sheet" the respresent the "Stock Size" you set under "Material Settings." On large projects, or ones that exceed the cutting area of the cutting area of the material, you may see multiple sheets.

How it Works

While GCrafter was happily crunching the numbers behind the scenes to figer our the intersections between all your parts, computing the fingers, transforming the parts into their final shapes, it was also unpacking all those things into 2D cutting profiles.

Adjusting Layout

As we mentioned in the Parts section, each Part has it's own layout controls. These controls allow you to adjust rotation and mirroring. If you are cutting plywood, or a surface with directional vaneer, you may want the part to match the grain.

Packing Options

By default, the part packer will try all the configurations and determine the most effcient pack. This isn't based on any kind of "Smarts" other than effeciency. But efficient isn't always the right choice.

The options of the part packer are:

• Auto - Try all strategies, choose the best one(ish)

• Rectangles -- Try All Rects - The main MaxRects packer. It looks at all the free rectangular areas and picks the best one using one of the rules below. -- Best Short Side Fit - Places the part in the empty space where its shorter side fits most snugly (leaves the least wasted space on the short side). --Best Long Side Fit - Same idea, but focuses on getting the best fit along the part’s longer side. --Top Left - Tries to place each part as far down and as far to the left as possible. Good for keeping the overall height of the packed sheet smaller. --Contact Point - Prefers placements where the new part touches as many existing parts or sheet edges as possible. This creates tighter, more compact arrangements.

• Skyline -- Skyline Fast - Places parts along the current top outline (skyline) of the packed items. Fast and simple. -- Skyline Min Waste - A smarter version that chooses positions along the skyline to create the least amount of wasted gaps underneath or around the new part.

• Guillotine - Typically good for table / shop tool work flows -- Basic Guillotine - Basic guillotine packer that only uses full straight cuts across the entire sheet. Designed for real-world industrial cutting. -- Best Short Side Fit - Chooses cuts and placements that give the best fit on the short side of the part. -- Best Long Side Fit - Chooses cuts and placements that give the best fit on the long side of the part. -- Shorter Leftover Axis - Prefers to leave the smaller leftover piece along a particular direction after cutting. -- Longer Leftover Axis - Prefers to leave the larger leftover piece along a particular direction after cutting. -- Min Area Split - When making a cut, it chooses the one that creates the smallest remaining piece for the current part. -- Max Area Split - When making a cut, it chooses the one that creates the largest remaining piece for the current part.

• Shelf / Level -- Next Fit - Sort parts tallest first. Keep adding to the current shelf until something doesn’t fit, then open a new shelf above it. Very fast but can waste more space. -- First Fit - Sort tallest first. Try to put each part on the lowest (first) shelf that still has room. Only open a new shelf if it doesn’t fit anywhere. -- Best Fit - Sort tallest first. Place each part on the shelf where it fits with the smallest leftover space on that row (the tightest fit).

If you don't like the pack, try some of the others. Sometime you get surprisingly good result with one strategy over another.

View Options

By default, the Layout shows outlines and pockets and labels on parts. You can toggle these on and off along with a number of other features.

• Dogbones - show the part with or without the dogbones cut out
• Dogbone Circles - Shows the actual circle used in cuting the dogbones
• Screw Holes - Show or hide the assembly screw holes. These and enabled per part in the parts layout settings
• Labels - Show or hide the part labels and pocket depth labels
• Dimension - Add actual dimension information the part label
• Sheets - Show or hide the sheet perimeters
• Parts - Show or hide the part outline
• Tool Paths - Show or hide the toolpath that would be typically be created in CAM software (yes we're working on GCode Export)
• Fingers - Show the actual shapes that were used to create the fingers
• Intersections - Show the 2D represention of the 3D intersection
• Pockts - Show or hide any pockets