Nesting and Cutting Optimization Software

This release contains a bug fix to the multi-stage algorithm.

Cutting Optimization pro 5.18.0.47 is now (2024.09.14) released. Here is a list with what is new:

Bug fixing

• Bug fixed for not considering edge-band tolerance.
• Bug fixed for duplicating columns name in the importing from (Excel or CSV) window.
• Bug fixed in linear engine (1D) for some particular cases with Priority different from 0 which can result in the crash of the application.
• Fixed sorting thickness column in the Edge bands window.
• Fixed a problem with duplicate materials in the lists of sheets, extra components and edge bands.
• Fixed a problem with the main window freezing when is too small.
• Test for not mixing fractional with real values inside the extra components of part’s quantities.

New features

• Projects are introduced. A project contains parts, stock, materials, technical settings and results. Projects are saved, by default, to Working folder\\Project. Projects can contain comments, which are visible in the Project | About window. Interface settings are not saved/loaded within a project.
• Can load entire project (parts, stock, parameters and results) at startup (from command line). Example to call: cut.exe “c:\\temp\\project.xml”.
• An option for Import and append of Stock has been added under the Stock Excel button.
• Extra components quantities can be fractional numbers too (e.g. 100 1/2). Previously only real values (e.g. 100.5) were accepted.
• Results 1D, Materials, Edge Bands, Extra Components, Extra Components from Parts grids now have a column with the index.
• Most statistics tables have grids an index column that can be shown/hide from the checkbox in the Interface Settings window.
• Summary table has a new column containing the label of the sheet.
• Materials statistics 1D have a new column containing the number of pieces.
• When changing the Working folder, if the stock2d.xml is detected in the new folder, no files are moved there, and the existing files (from that folder) are loaded into the program.
• The origin of XY axis is drawn in a corner (top or bottom) of the image.
• 1D results can be shown as text or graphically.
• 2D results can be saved to PNG format.
• 1D results can be saved to PNG and BMP formats.
• Materials and edge bands lists are also saved to CSV.

Reorganization/Improvements

• Better optimization.
• The rectangular (2D) results have been moved to a separate panel. They are not mixed anymore with Results 1D and Statistics tabs. In this way the statistics can be accessed easily without scrolling the entire list of sheets.
• All statistics (2D, 1D, extra components, edge bands and total price) have been moved on a separate tab.
• Import, Import and append, Export, from/to Excel and CSV, (for Parts) have been moved under a new button in the Parts’s toolbar.
• Show piece index only has been moved from Interface window to the main window | Additional options from the Results 2D popup menu.
• Show cut length has been moved from Interface window to the main window | Additional options from the Results 2D popup menu.
• Show waste size option has been moved under the Additional options button of the Results 2D toolbar.
• Results menu has been renamed to Project.
• History of Stock and Waste have been moved from main menu to the Stock toolbar.
• Find optimal stock size has been moved under the Stock|Tools toolbar.
• Parts are saved, by default, to Working folder\\Parts.
• Language menu has been moved as submenu of the Settings menu.
• Updates menu has been moved to the top menu.
• Two panels options has been moved to the Settings menu.
• Fractional values are not rounded (up or down) anymore. Instead, an error message is shown if fractional values are not rounded correctly.
• The table with List of products has been moved to the left of Products window.
• Extra components panel from the Products window has been removed and the extra components can be added, to a product, from the corresponding button in the toolbar.
• Append products to Parts window has been reorganized.
• Price statistics has been moved in a separate tab. This is shown only if there are multiple statistics (Results 2D, Results 1D, Edge bands, Extra components). Otherwise the price should be taken from each separate statistic.
• The button which displays the list of pieces as a table has been moved from the main toolbar to the Results 2D tab.
• Status bar (at the bottom of the main window) is only visible for rectangular results.
• Undo Accept button has been moved from the main menu to the Results toolbar.
• Font button for 2D graphics has been moved to a separate tab in the Interface window.
• DXF export options make distinction between labels and sizes of sheets and parts.
• Default names for most of the save dialogs. The default name is postfixed by the current date [YY_MM_DD_HH_MM_SS].
• Improved language translations. Language’s name are shown in the native form.
• About window has been redesigned and simplified.

Deprecation

• For the 1D case only the Width of a piece can be 0. Pieces with the Length 0 are not considered as being valid anymore.
• No more support from loading data from old versions of the program (dbt and xtx files).
• The name of the material is not shown as a separate column of Pieces list window since all pieces are made from the same material.
• Help | Service | Load everything is not available for end-users. Use the Project menu instead.
• Export to Word is not available for materials, edge bands and extra components. Use the export to Excel instead.
• Cuts table from Statistics 1D has been removed because it contained duplicate information already presented in the Results 1D tab.
• Some options from the Print options window have been removed and the current options from the screen view are taken into account instead.

Cutting Optimization pro 6 is now released for testing purposes by courageous users.

Here is a list of what is new:

• Completely redesigned interface.
• All menus have been transformed into toolbars.
• Parts can have a color.
• Multiple rows of data (Parts and Stock) can be edited in the same time. Just select multiple rows and press the Modify button.
• New Parts and Stock pieces can be added by pressing the Append button, INS key or double-click on the empty area of the table.
• Data editing can be done by pressing the Modify button or the F2 or Enter keys or double-click on a row. If you want to edit a particular column, just double-click on the cell at the intersection of the row and the wanted column.
• Projects are introduced. You can save/load all data (parts, stock, settings, materials and results) to/from a single file.
• Can create adhesive labels for utilized pieces (solutions) only. Can print adhesive label only for 1 piece (by right-click on it and select Adhesive label).
• Can set the font for grids (see menu Settings | Interface).
• Can attach pictures to products.
• Can attach pictures to extra components.
• Can add extra information into a new label column when defining materials, extra components, edge bands.
• Automatic management of edge bands and extra components quantities. When the optimization is accepted, the utilized quantities are automatically subtracted from the stock of edge bands and extra components.
• Rotation column has been removed. Now all rotations are handled by specifying the grain (fiber direction) of the materials.
• Zoom in/out is done with the mouse wheel.
• Can show/hide most of the columns of the tables.
• Can load data(projects) from the command line.
• Optimization progress is shown on a new window.
• Many other small improvements and new features…

From the computer programmer point of view, the motivation was to use only controls offered by the Operating System and nothing else. The transition to 64 bit and ARM would be easier in this way. The outsider control was the grid for data editing, which was replaced by a List View. The main effect is that data cannot be directly edited within the List View control, and a new window is introduced for this purpose.

Cutting Optimization pro 6 can be tried from https://optimalprograms.com/cut6_beta.html

A movie with Cutting Optimization pro 6 is here:

Hi,

We have created a short movie showing how to work with edge banding in Cutting Optimization pro 5.

Here it is:

enjoy

We have improved the loading of Excel and CSV files starting with version 5960 of Cutting Optimization pro.

Recall that loading of the parts (the demand) can be done by pressing the Open button from the toolbar of the Parts / Demand table. There you can specify Excel xls/xlsx/csv file type. Loading an Inventory can be done from menu File | Inventory.

From now you can:

– specify columns from which the data are loaded. For that purpose just press the arrows which are in the header (first row) of the table. For instance, if your first column in the Excel file contains the quantity, just select the “Quantity” word to appear in the top of the first column of the “Import data” table.

– ignore some rows which do not contain valid data. For this purpose uncheck the checkboxes from the first column of the table. Ignoring some rows is compulsory if your excel file contains some header rows and some other rows at the bottom of your data (like Date, Signature, etc)

A movie exemplifying these 2 cases is here: