Cutlist and Layout from Sketchup

Fantastic! Can’t wait to try this out :) Thanks.

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Just saw your post regards the algo (I wish LJ would automatically email with new comments on posts I’ve replied to). I started down this path a while back and had hours of fun with the packing algos (not having a degree in math) there is a lot of info on the subject and they are all 2DBPP algos, 2D Bin Packing Problems. It’s a common problem. I gave up when I couldn’t write an algo that beat Cutlist Pro. Have you compared yours to Cutlist Pro?

Maybe you can understand what these guys are talking about A Unifed Tabu Search Code for
Multi-Dimensional Bin Packing Problems from the sounds of it you are using a best fit first, sort pieces by max height/width then add them in a row

These guys also put together an overview of the various approaches you can use which I found pretty useful.

Anyway, hope these links prove interesting and thanks again for al the hard work you’ve put into this.

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

no go on a mac = that is a :( indeed… is your UI based on the browser libraries?

-- ㊍ When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Looks Great Steve!.... I have only recently started in on Sketchup and will be looking at this as a next step for any designs I develop.

Thanks!

-- Chris

Hi Damian,

Thanks for the paper.

It looks like the 2D version of the ‘Tabu’ algorithm is pretty much exactly what I did, only I thought it was intuitively obvious from the way I would lay out the pieces as a woodworker. I developed my idea of how to implement it 15 years ago, beating these guys by a decade. The idea, I thought, was trivial, the implementation is slightly more interesting. I just didn’t get around to it and I didn’t write a paper ( maybe I should have). The only thing they’ve added in ‘TABU” is the ability to do 3D ( which is a simple extension of what I do), the ability to reposition pieces for a potentially better fit ( which I planned to do but then thought that it wouldn’t add a great deal of value), and the ability to use different sized bins ( the infrastructure for this exists in my version of Cutlist, but I left this for later).

What he calls ‘bins’ we call boards or sheets.

The 3D packing problem could be useful for layout a well, for resawn boards. It could also be extended to sawmilling. In fact this is being done – some interesting technology exists today in sawmilling where logs are scanned or x-rayed in real time and optimal cuts are computed taking into account structural defects, quality of wood, log size and market demand. I think this is all good use of technology, better than building weapons.

I haven’t compared with CutListPlus. I’ve got a very old trial copy which I’ve never used. I think the trial version has limits on how much it would lay out. If anyone has CutListPlus and can compare, I would be interested to hear any results.

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Hey Purp,

Sorry about the Mac thing. Everything I’m doing is standard stuff. I’ve even tried the html pages in Firefox, MS IE and Safari and they all work fine and all work the same way. The issue seems to be with Sketchup’s insistence that Windows Sketchup uses MS IE and Mac Sketchup uses Safari regardless of what your default browser is AND with Safari, Sketchup’s interface ( The WebDialog class) to a web page has some issues. It doesn’t help that apparently Sketchup blames Safari, Safari blames Sketchup.

The only solution would be to be able to pick a browser in Sketchup but that’s not currently possible. – maybe I’ll lobby the Sketchup folks for this feature to be in SU7.

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Nice work. I’ve just had a bit of a play with it. It looks like a big addition to SketchUp for woodworking. Thank you.

By the way, Steve, you might want to change the link to my blog post about V3.3 to http://blogs.taunton.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=fw-designforum&entry=108 and perhaps add http://blogs.taunton.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=fw-designforum&entry=111

I just wrote a short little post on Version 4 a few minutes ago, too.

Thanks again.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Steve,

I have the current Cutlist Plus; Your solution appears to go head 2 head with it. I will install yours and give it a run!

Ok?

-- Chris

Looks like a good addition to the program. And I see Dave Richards has joined in, he is great with sketchup.

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I have been wondering when Sketch up will go metric ? Maybe a plug to be available?
I ask, because I and some others have been doing some shop work using metric measuring and I can see some real advantages.
Anyway-thanks for posting this blog

-- Stop by my web site=www.txthunderwoodworks.com

DaveR – I’ll get these changes made asap. Thanks for stopping in and taking a look and the quickie review on Design.Build.Click. You may be disappointed with the printing capabilities of the layout portion, though. Can’t print directly from the output window – quirk with the javascript I was using to produce the graphics and MS IE. This still needs improvement. I threw in the the ability to produce a SVG file to try to address this. SVG output can be read by Firefox ( MS IE is useless at it) and then printed but it’s still not perfect. If you have another SVG reader, then I suspect it will be better. The advantage of SVG is that it’s scalar ( the S in SVG) ie: you can zoom in and out – should make it easier to see the small parts laid out.

Chris : Give it a shot buddy. I’d be real curious. Btw, there is a known issue with the csv output and CutListPlus 2009. I don’t have the exact details, which is why I couldn’t fix it….but if someone can tell me, I’ll make the changes.

Daveintexas : Metric works in Sketchup already and this plugin supports it too and it’s been tested with metric. I work in metric measure but I like to show total volume in board feet, so that is supported too. ( The combination is common where I am). To switch to metric measure, you have to change the unit in the model ( everything else is automatic). Window->Model Info-> Length Units. Set Format to Decimal and then the units to Millimeters, Centimeters or Meters. If you then run CutList again, all measures will show up in metric. How cool is that?

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

I am running Google SketchUp Pro 6, and when I open the CutList plug-in I get the MS “This program cannot display the webpage.” Any help on this?

-- Bob

i extracted the entire contents of the zip file to my plugins folder but it is not available when i open SU6. is there another step im missing?

Thanks for the followup Steve, sounds perfect :)

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Could you just rename firefox.exe to safari.exe (or whatever the mac version of this is)

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Bob,
This is usually an indication that it can’t find the html file used as the interface for the plugin. Make sure the folder ‘cutlistui’ from the zip file is also in your plugins folder.

titmas : Not sure what happened there, you might have unzipped it to a folder in the plugins folder. The ruby script has to be in the plugins folder along with the folder cutlistui which contains the rest of what the plugin needs.

Here is what your directory should look like after installation:

Hope this helps and you get to the fun stuff!

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Looks like a great program. Can’t wait to try it out!!!!!

Steve,

The cutlistui folder did the trick! Can’t wait to start using it. Thanks for your help!

-- Bob

Newsflash!

I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough in making a version compatible with the Mac, thanks to Corbin Dunn of Blue Tree Software, a woodworker and a programmer on the Mac OS with Apple, who contacted me offlist.

For those daring enough to edit the ruby script you can find and change the following two lines ( the backslashes become forward slashes )

  #relative location of the cutlist input html page
  @@cutlistui_location = '/cutlistui/cutlistui.html'

  #relative location of the cutlist result html template
  @@cutlistresult_location = '/cutlistui/cutlistresult.html'

Otherwise, I’ll have more news shortly on having a single version which works for both. ( I just tested this and this work for Windows too, so it should be possible to maintain a single version).

Woohoo!

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Steve, glad you got the Mac thing straightened out. I got a note from Corbin about this, too. It is definitely good news.

I’ve got a puzzle for you on a different topic. Sometimes I will scale a component after it is made. For example I might be working on a coffee table and a side table. The only difference between their legs might be the length. If I copy the leg drawn for one table, make it unique and then scale it for the other table, the CutList plugin reports the dimensions of the new leg as being the same size as the original. This doesn’t seem to be a problem if I resize the leg using other methods.

There are other examples where I might make some parts at a larger scale to avoid the tiny face problem. Usually those parts are drawn in reference to a copy of another component that has been scaled up. Once those parts are complete, they are made into components and scaled down to be inserted into the model. The problem is that a tiny little spline might get reported as needing more board feet of lumber than the rest of the project combined.

Any fix for this?

Thanks a bunch.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hi Dave,

That’s a mighty big spline you’re trying to use – I have an idea – why not just take the spline and carve a table out of it!

I think I know what might be happening. I’ll confirm it with some more testing and if I am right, relatively easy to fix and incorporate into an updated version.

If you care to follow the logic of this:
In order to fix the bounding box issue with rotated parts, the dimensions for a part was changed to come from the component or group definition rather than the instance. It appears ( and makes sense ) that scaling ( just like rotation) is an attribute of the component or group instance rather than the definition. So, to get the true dimension of a part, I’ll have to apply any scaling to the bounding box dimensions found in the definition. Scaling is not being taken into account, which is why you would always get the same size as the original definition.

Good catch, Dave!

I’ll let you know when I have a new version ready to go.

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Hi Steve,

I think I understand what you’re getting at with the definition/instance thing. Thanks for working to fix that. Although I had seen it the day I downloaded it—lucky choice of model—I hadn’t had a chance to follow up on it. A fellow reported it on a comment to my blog post about the new version so I figured it wasn’t just me.

FWIW, the piece I discovered the problem with is Gary Rogowski’s “Arts and Crafts bed and the splines are the little ebony bits at the tops of the legs. I suppose whittling the entire bed out of one hunk of ebony might be an option but even if there was a piece that big, I couldn’t afford to buy it.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Steve, I found anotherstrange thing. I made a test model of eight components (instances of one) and added “sheet” to the named material. The CutList reports the dimensions correctly but no diagram is generated. Then I added a single board component and I got both a diagram for the board and another for the sheet goods. It appears if there are no boards, the plugin doesn’t look for sheet goods for the diagram.

Thanks again.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hi Dave,

Thanks again. I’ll look into the other issue as well. It wasn’t designed to work that way but that doesn’t mean it didn’t end up that way!

I’ve been playing with the scaling thing and I now have a working version for components. I just want to make sure it also works for groups the same way and then i need to double check I got the scaling in the right direction. Sketchup uses x,y,z axis for scaling but a bounding box has width, height and depth!

Looks like I’ll have to get a version 4.1 out with Mac support, scaling and other fixes soon.

That’s a good looking bed. Perhaps all ebony would probably be overkill though, a bit dark.

He also has this table but this one has too much cow for my liking :) Not sure how that would show up in the parts list.

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Steve,

Thank you for looking into this stuff. Lots of details to work out and keep track of aren’t there?

Sorry about the cow. I made the style for SketchUp but someone else added the cow. It makes me laugh every time I see it. The table is based on a Thos. Moser piece. I’m hoping to build it one of these days.

Thanks again.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

You guys are awsome. I was trying to use ecabinets for alot of my stuff, but with all the excellent work you guys are doing on this one plugin, sketchup has become my tool of choice for almost everything.

-- If you can't build it, code it. If you can't code it, build it. But always ALWAYS take a picture.

Hey Steve,
This is just awesome! I’ve used CutList Plus on Windows XP, but now I have Mac so I’ve been wanting a cutlist/layout program for Mac for a long time! I made the Mac changes stated above, and now it works, although it looks a little funny. On the components page I get a bunch of ”\n” everywhere. I haven’t gone through any of the setups other than defaults, so that may be some of my problem. And it looks like I need to learn how to assign materials to my components.

Thanks for the awesome program!

Geoff

-- Geoff

Geoff,

Yeah, the changes above at least get it going for Macs. it’s better but not perfect yet.

• Getting the cutlist seems to work now except for the nuisance ”\n” which is the plugin’s fault but that too can be remedied with a small change. I’ll provide details later.For now, it just gets in the way but it’s harmless.
• The layout option will still create some grief because Safari is unhappy with some of the ways in which the output is produced in the browser – however, you can always use the SVG layout option instead and produce an SVG file. This text file looks like xml but it’s for graphics and is readable using Firefox browsers( File-> Open File) or other SVG readers ( I believe there is a plugin available for MS IE)

This seems to be the best workaround for Mac users for now. I’m glad to hear that it’s useful enough for you.

depictureboy: Thanks for your comments and support. I’m not familiar with eCabinets ( other than having heard about it ). I’m glad CutList is giving you some value. I just wanted to produce something which was useful for me, building on the excellent base that Sketchup has provided. Go Google!

Btw, the feedback we are getting here from those who are trying it and letting me know of any issues is the reason why this can just get better and more useful.

-- Steve, New Zealand, http://www.steveracz.com

Ive been using Setchup for six months and the addition of cutlist 4 makes good software much better. The main issue I have with it concerns the printing or lack of it. I have managed to print the component list but the cutting diagram is more problematic as there is no “Print View” button on screen. In case others are having the same problem, I manged to print it by right clicking it and choosing print I assume this will be sorted in a later version but until then Thanks
PS I also modified the script so that the background is left white I just hate to waste all tha ink

—Ted Gibbs

-- Ted Gibbs Edinburgh Scotland

Thanks Steve,
I tried this last night on a wine cellar I’m working on. After it ran, I got a message about it not being able to place some components. Some components are 16”+ wide and 8’ long. These are going to be glued up solid wood panels. Obviously they can’t be placed on a 6” wide board, but would these components be included in the total board feet calculation?

Maybe a future addition would be to include in the layout the boards that maybe included in a glued up component? Maybe the material could include “glued up panel” or something like that.

Keep up the great work!

-- Geoff

Geoff, Check your layout settings. You may not be using a board that is long enough to accomodate your longest plank, and you also may be using the dressed setting instead of the rough setting. I dont think your issue is with the width, but with the length.

-- If you can't build it, code it. If you can't code it, build it. But always ALWAYS take a picture.