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?

-- My Drinking Club has a Woodworking Problem...

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, 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, 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

-- "Duck snored."

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

-- MISSION FURNITURE-My mission is to build furniture

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, 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?

-- Freedom of speech means having to hear things that you don't agree with.

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, 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, 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

-- "Duck snored."

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, 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.

-- "Duck snored."

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

-- "Duck snored."

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, 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

-- "Duck snored."

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, 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

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.

• Printing the cutlist. I hear ya. I’ll make sure to make the change to print the cutlist on a white background. I understand about the ink thing.
• Printing the layout. I’ve mentioned this a few times. This has been rather problematic. The ‘print view’ button is disabled for a reason. If you were to re-enable it and push the print button, all you would get is the script which was dynamically produced to create the graphics. The method I used to produce the graphics has a printable mode option but when turned on, MS IE completely messes up the display. I even contacted the original author to see if there was a workaround and he admitted that he didn’t know of one, it’s an MS IE thing. There are a few alternatives. The first is the one you pointed out. The second might be to take a print screen of the window and copy to a paint program and print from there. The only disadvantage here is that you only get what is displayed. The last one is the one I put in place as a workaround: Select the SVG layout option and read the resulting .svg file into either Firefox, MSIE with the SVG plugin or an SVG reader.

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Geoff: The ability to split wide parts is already supported. It’s an option on the layout page main options (Split Wide Parts). It will split the part to whatever board size you have selected and it takes into account whether you are laying out to dressed boards or not. It will always split the board into same sized parts and go oversize if necessary. In your case, your 16” wide part will be split into 3x 6” wide parts. As depictureboy mentioned, if you didn’t select at least 8’ board sizes for layout, then it won’t be able to do it.

There is also another option to display any parts which were not laid out ( Display unplaced parts ) – so you can see what didn’t get placed. It gets printed at the very end of the layout screen. This might give you an idea of what might have happened. Mainly these are parts which are too big and result in too many splits or it’s longer than the board size you’ve selected.

The board feet calculation is independent of the layout. If it’s on the cutlist, it’s been added to the board feet calculation.

The layout includes another board feet calculation, resulting from the number of boards required for layout and includes the waste.

You make a good suggestion to rename any parts which have been split or at least to append something to the name to indicate it’s a glue up panel. It’s an easy change and I can add it to the next version.

Good comments guys. Thanks!

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

daltxguy,

This is one nice addition to Sketchup. I am in the process of modeling up a qtr round display case and getting and accurate wood layout is a very nice addition to the process.

-- //FC - Round Rock, TX - "Experience is what you get just after you need it"

Whoa… just noticed this post. Gotta spend more time reading it later. COOL!

-- Check out my new website! http://www.theeasellife.com

I guess I should really learn Sketchup, huh?

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I’ve just uploaded a new version of the plugin – v4.0.4
If you click on the download link in the original post, you will now get this version

1. Now handles scaled components and groups. Previously, scaled copies of components or groups showed up incorrectly as the original definition size. This has been corrected.
2. Mac support – better now. Cutlist display should come up. Thre is still an issue with the layout display but using the layout SVG output is a workaround there.
3. Better support for nested components. If a component has subcomponents, then only the lowest level subcomponents are included in the cutlist.
4. Sheet goods only layout. If you had only sheet goods in your cutlist, the layout was not displaying. This has been corrected.
5. Html window heading now displays the subversion number as well, so you can tell which version you are running

Steve

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Hi Steve,
I’m trying to find where the CSV file is written on a Mac? I’ve looked through the help but can’t seem to find the location. BTW, the new version is great on the Mac – I’m still learning it though.

Thanks,
Geoff

-- Geoff

Hi Geoff,

Glad to hear the Mac version is better now.

I think the original intention was for the file to be written to the same directory as your sketchup file but I notice that on Win-doze based systems it’s writing it to the desktop.

In any case, when it writes the file, a window should pop up letting you know that the file was written and where. If this is not happening on the Mac, let me know. I can get my Macman to have a look at it.

I’m playing without a safety net with the Mac stuff. I’m having to making changes based on the feedback I get so keep hammering me with anything that doesn’t work. I’m even willing to send you test fixes so you can pioneer the solutions with me.

Steve

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Steve, thanks for the update.

I’m curious about the SVG export. I tried viewing it in Firefox. I seem to be only able to get one screen’s worth of it though. What am I missing?

The same thing happens with the Adobe plugin for Internet Explorer.

Thanks again,

Dave

-- "Duck snored."

Ok, usually, I can figure most computer related things out. I am stumped here. I am still learning sketchup. How do I use this plugin with it? I am using a Mac.

-- I get payed to play with power tools! What could be better than that?

Hi Dave R,

You’re not missing anything wrt SVG viewing in Firefox ( or MSIE with Adobe SVG reader plugin ). Im sure I am missing something in the SVG file when the display length exceeds the screen size.

I’ve been looking at this but haven’t figured out anything helpful yet! I guess I was hoping that SVG readers would automatically paginate, but no :(

Steve

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Hi Sparky

Nothing special for Macs. Same as for everyone else. Unpack the contents of the zip file into the Sketchup plugin directory and fire up Sketchup. See the screen shot in a previous post above showing how it looks after installation.

You should then see the ‘Cutlist’ option in the Plugins menu ( see the very first screen shot in the post).

Steve

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

where is the “plugin” directory for sketchup on a Mac?

-- I get payed to play with power tools! What could be better than that?

Great looking addition to sketchup!

-- It's better to have people think you're stupid rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Shame on you Sparky. You’re making me do your googling for you. I don’t have a Mac but I did find this:

The default location of the Plugins folder in Windows is:

Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 6/SketchUp/

found here on the sketchup how-to forum, which is a good general sketchup resource.

The original reference is here in an article how to install a plugin

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Cool, thanks! Sorry for making you do the looking. I had spent a lot of time already going through the help file for sketchup and hadn’t found anything that answered my question. It was late and I was getting irritated. :)

-- I get payed to play with power tools! What could be better than that?

No worries Sparky. I guess I should have put a :) on the comment above.

I’ll probably include a Readme file in the next version to give people a place to start with any questions.

I hope you get to the fun stuff soon!

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Thanks Steve,

If you figure out a fix, I’d be happy to try it out.

Dave

p.s. would you like to come up and see my etchings? :D

-- "Duck snored."

Ok, still not able to get this to work completely right. I am trying to use the svg option, but whether I open that file with firefox or safari, I only get the first page of layouts. I am using Firefox 3.0, if that might make a difference.

Edit: Ok, I can see that the page continues, but for some reason, firefox will not give me a scroll bar to see lower than one page. But, like I say, I can see the top of the next sheet of ply layed out. weird.

Edit again: I can zoom out to see all the sheets, but they are so small at that point, I can’t read anything. . .

-- I get payed to play with power tools! What could be better than that?

Sparky, I think Steve is still working on how the SVG export behaves when it is more than one page long.

-- "Duck snored."

Ok, guess its back to switching back and forth between mac and windows with Parallels then and just using CutlistPlus. . .

-- I get payed to play with power tools! What could be better than that?

Hi Steve,
If I choose CSV or SVG Layout I don’t get any files, on the desktop or in the directory where the sketchup file is…

Also, when I have Web Page and Layout checked, and all Types checked, I get the list of components along with the total board feet, but I also get a blank window with just the background. There is a print view button at the bottom. Is that where I should see the layout for each board?

-- Geoff

Hi Geoff,

Ok, layout option ( which creates another window) does not work for Mac. That’s the blank window you are seeing. So, yes, that’s where you would normally see a layout.

As for the files, not sure what is up there because Sparky was just mentioning the issue (common to all platforms) of the SVG output when it spans more than one page. He is on a Mac, so he obviously had a file created or else he wouldn’t have been able to see that.

Perhaps you can PM Sparky offline and compare notes.

Or, you can be of some assistance. If/when you do it again, if you can open the Ruby Console, run it again and then copy/paste the contents and send it to me in a PM.

Sorry about the Mac issues, mates.

Steve

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

It seems the only solution for SVG layout pagination is to produce multiple files. I’ve got a working version almost ready to go. Just a bit more testing, possibly putting in an option to allow optimization for portrait or landscape ( right now i assume landscape but this may not be best for sheet layout).

This should be ready in a few days. I’ll announce when it is. Lucky for you guys, it’s the middle of winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s too cold for the shop and gets dark too early so most of my woodworking is in front of the computer while waiting for the Tour de France coverage which starts at midnite our time :)

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

wear thermals! and turn on the light!!!! and its not that cold now…. or maybe i am now completely numb.
anyway, spring is in the air and the Rhododendrons start blooming. wake up and smell the sawdust.

-- The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep...

Hey Steve,
I just sent the ruby script output in a PM. Also, feel free to send me test scripts if you want me to test them on the Mac. This script is awesome so far. It’ll keep me for going back to the “dark” side, aka windows XP.

-- Geoff

lol Moshe! If anyone knows what it’s like working in the shop this time of year here, I can’t deny that you would be the expert neighbor. Ok, no excuses… I’ll turn those bow saw handles with thermals, gloves and the lights on…indeed, spring is just around the corner (never mind that the ski season just started!).

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

lol Moshe! If anyone knows what it’s like working in the shop this time of year here, I can’t deny that you would be the expert neighbor. Ok, no excuses… I’ll turn those bow saw handles with thermals, gloves and the lights on…indeed, spring is around the corner (never mind that the ski season just started!).

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Oy, I forgot you are on teh arse end of the world….I had a buddy I met in Hong Kong from Christs church, and another buddy who was part Maori from further north…..

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

Yup, Moshe and I are both in Christchurch. We had the first ever Lumberjock picnic in the southern hemisphere ( I believe) some weeks ago when we got together for dinner and some woodshop talk. Neither of us can lay claim to being one of the natives though – neither the colonial occupiers nor the indigenous peoples.

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

v4.0.5 now available

This download link here and the one at the top of this blog and the download link available from my web page have now been updated with v4.0.5 of the Sketchup Cutlist plugin.

1. The layout SVG file export is now paginated. When selecting this option the layout is now written to several files, each representing a single page of output. These files can be displayed using Firefox or MSIE with an Adobe SVG reader plugin and can then be printed. Printing landscape format will be your best bet. This will make printing the layout a lot easier.
2. When choosing an output format which produces a file, this file will now be placed in the same directory as your model. If you have started a new model and have not yet saved it but try producing a cutlist, this will be detected and the plugin will remind you that you must save your work first.

Please feel free to post any comments, questions, suggestions here. Thanks for all the feedback and support on list and off.

• There have now been close to 1200 downloads of the plugin since first posted.
• This blog appears #7 in the top 10 google search of “Sketchup cutlist”. The other references are to the older version of the plugin.

If you’re here looking for the latest on this plugin, you are definitely in the right place!
This is still the only official discussion site for this plugin.

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Steve, thanks for the update. I’ll give it a look see as soon as I can.

I just got an e-mail from a friend in France who is giving your plugin a try. He sent me a screen shot showing an interesting problem and he asked if I could contact you about it. See the image at the following link: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/CutList_JF.jpg
I expect you’ll see the problem immediately. If not, it has to do with the additional 2.2mm^3 in the volume calculation. Any thoughts?

Thanks again.

Dave

-- "Duck snored."

Hi Dave,

Thanks for passing that on. It’s clearly an internal rounding error. Sketchup ( as does the plugin) stores everything in inches and the model units are applied on output. I do the same for volume measures but I’ll have a look to see if I can make it more accurate.

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Hey Steve,

This thing rocks! I have been using it on the model you downloaded. I thought it was wrong once but it was me.

Thanks a million for all this work.

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

Thanks Scott! and thanks for the model. It was quite useful in the testing.

I’m glad to see your model now having become a real thing. Well done! – looks even better ‘in the flesh’ and a great blog series.

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Hey Steve,
I tested the version you emailed me. The SVG files work great on a mac! So far so good. Keep it up!

-- Geoff

Steve,

Thanks for all your effort and to other who have contributed on this project.

You mentioned in your release notes; “Known issues with compatibility with CutListPlus 2009. If someone gets me the details, I’ll fix it but I don’t have CutListPlus so I need your help.”

How can I help? I really like CutList Plus but having to enter everything manually in the past has been time consuming and error prone. I have experimented with importing a .csv generated by Cut List 4.0.5, but it does not work. I am not sure what type of info would be helpful to you. Please let me know.

Thanks again!

Eric

Steve,
I’m using your nice tool and have some issues for which I need some comments.
One has been already adressed to you by DaveR concerning the volume calculation accuracy in metrics.
Now I’ve another question concerning CSV output. I did the test with your last version 4.05 but it was the same in the previous one.
If you check both “Web Page” and “CSV format” output you have a problem with width values in the CSV format. All are 0mm. and total lenght is also not correct. See my screen shots for the same list of components.

http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/cc335/jft68/?action=view&current=CutList_Anomalie_CSV.jpg
http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/cc335/jft68/?action=view&current=CutList_Anomalie_CSV_1.jpg

-- Jean-Franco

Geoff – that’s great news. Thanks for the feedback. The released v4.0.5 is a slightly improved version if you care to upgrade but largely the same.

Eric - If it’s available and it doesn’t violate any copyright protection, it would be great to get a copy of any interface documentation provided with CutListPlus 2009. That way I can verify all of the fields are in the expected format. Someone on the FineWoodworking blog mentioned that it was just a case of some missing double quotes but the description wasn’t precise enough for me to be confident about making any changes. On the other hand, if you are willing to be a guinea pig, I can change what I think is the problem and you can try it, but it’s not the most efficient way of sorting out the missing piece.

Jean-Franco – Merci pour les remarques. C’est evident qu’il y a un probleme. Je m’engage de vous trouver une solution.

I will make an announcement to all when solutions have been found/tested/released.

Steve

-- Steve, New Zealand, www.steveracz.com

Hi Steve,
I did download the latest version. When I run in on my current project I get this error message:

Some parts were left which could not be placed.
No boards left or board limit reached.

What does that mean?
Thanks!

-- Geoff

Steve,

Another future wish list item to think about….MDF and Melamine come in 49” x 97” and many cabinet grade plywood sheets come in 48-1/2×96-1/2 so that you can clean up the edges. Also, if you get a sheet that has a 4” rip that is unusable due to a fork lift injury, water stain or whatever, it would be nice if you can input your own sheet size.

Thanks!

Eric