Thanks to Andrew Athanasiadis we now have Greek translation for our optimization programs. Thanks a lot Andrew!
Archive for the ‘Cutting Optimization pro’ Category
How to contact us!
Saturday, December 22nd, 2012Preferred contact address: contact@optimalprograms.com
We usually answer all emails in max. 24 hours since their receipt.
If you do not receive an answer from us it means that your server blocks our email address !
Also, please check your Spam or Junk folders … in some cases our messages arrive there.
Also, you may add our address to your Contacts list.
We DO NOT send unsolicited emails … we are not spammers … so the problem is in your server only! Please contact your email provider to fix that !
Alternately you may contact us at:
or
You can also fax us at: 0040358814190, but we usually do not send faxes back to you.
Restoring an old inventory
Friday, August 3rd, 2012Cutting Optimization pro saves a backup copy of its almost all files.
These copies are placed in the “backup” folder from the working directory (you can find the working directory by pressing menu Settings | Working directory).
In the backup folder are other folders for inventory, materials, edge bands, extra components etc.
Copies of the inventory are saved in the “stock” folder. The name of these files have the following structure:
initial name_year_month_day_hour_minute_second.extension,
where year, month, day, hour, minute, second specify the date and time of saving.
You can easily restore any of the previously saved inventory by taking one of the old files and by copying its content to the existing inventory file.
Now, you can restore an old inventory with few clicks.
– Go to menu History | Inventory. A list of files should appear. There is a table which has the file name on the first column and date of creation on the second column.
– Select the desired file. At the right (in the preview table) you may see its content.
– Press button Restore.
that is all … below is a short movie:
DXF export in Cutting Optimization pro
Friday, August 3rd, 2012Starting with version 5.7.0.0 we can export diagrams to dxf format. Just run an optimization and then press the “DXF” button found in the main toolbar.
Currently we save everything (the sheet, the pieces and their sizes) in a single layout … but soon we will introduce more options so that the user can customize to output.
Moving demand pieces between multiple sheets
Thursday, July 26th, 2012Starting with version 5601 of Cutting Optimization pro we have introduced the ability to move parts from one sheet to another.
There is a temporary panel (placed in the right side of the image) which is used for this purpose.
Here are the steps:
– Run the optimization.
– Drag any piece (from a sheet) to the right panel (in is a grayed area at the right of the sheet). A label with size of the piece (i.e. 100×200) should be created there. Drop the piece on the panel.
– Switch to another sheet where you want to place the piece.
– Drag the piece from the temporary panel to the new sheet. Drop it in the waste where you want to have it.
that is all!
here is a short movie with this operation:
Working with products in Cutting Optimization pro
Monday, July 9th, 2012I have just created a short movie showing how to work with products. You may watch it here:
Products in Cutting Optimization pro is a feature that will reduce the time spent to enter repetitive data in Cutting Optimization pro.
Imagine that you created a chair, or any other furniture. You know its components. You know that it has a part of 1000×500 size and 2 parts of 500×500.
If your customers want that chair, you have to introduce its sizes multiple times (once for each customer).
If you use products, you could introduce the sizes only once … and then you may added it to demand each time you need it.
Here are the steps for creating and using a product.
1. Go to menu Products | Show products.
2. Create a new product by pressing button “+”. Give a name to product.
3. Add the components of product in the table below. This has a similar structure with the Demand table from the main window of the Cutting Optimization pro.
4. Press ok. The product has been created and we can use it.
5. Now, assume that a customer wants 2 chairs (your product). Go to menu Products | Add product to demand.
6. From the list of the products select the one that you want to add it.
7. You may specify the quantity (how many copies of that product you want).
8. You may also re-assign the materials that are used to create that product.
9. Press Ok, and the product will be added to the current demand. You will see the sizes of the product’s parts added to demand list.
10. Start the optimization…
Fractional input in Cutting Optimization pro
Monday, July 9th, 2012In version 5 of the Cutting Optimization pro we have introduced fractional input (i.e. you may introduce 100 1/2 instead of 100.5). The rules are the same as those outlined for our Simple Cutting Software. Please check this post for more details:
https://optimalprograms.com/blog/2012/05/11/fractional-input-in-simple-cutting-software/
About the cutting and nesting optimization problem
Sunday, October 17th, 2010The cutting optimization problem belongs to the class of Nondeterminist Polynomial Complete (NP-Complete) problems [1]. Other problems in this class are the Hamiltonian path, Travelling Salesman, Subset sum, Clique, Independent set, Graph colouring etc. All these problems have been deeply analyzed by a huge number of researchers, but no polynomial-time algorithm was discovered for them. This has a direct consequence over the running time and the quality of the optimization.
A polynomial-time algorithm is that one whose running time is bounded by a polynomial function of its input size. For instance, if we have n = 1000 pieces to cut and the cutting algorithm would have the complexity O(n2), then the running time would have been directly and linear proportional to 10002 which is (106) units of time. Assuming that our computers can perform 109 operations per second, the cutting optimization algorithm would run in less than a fraction of a second. Sadly, this is not the case for the cutting optimization problem. There is no such fast algorithm for solving it.
The only perfect algorithm for solving the cutting optimization problem is an exponential one. An exponential algorithm will run in an exponential amount of time (2n, 3n, n! – where n is the number of pieces to be optimized). Thus, even for small instances (lets say 1000 pieces) an exponential algorithm will run as follows:
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These algorithms run in an impressive number of years. Even if we put all computers in the world to solve the problem in parallel we still don’t get a significant improvement in speed.
This is why another possibility (which is employed by our software too) is to use heuristics or approximation algorithms. A heuristic is an algorithm which is fast and returns a good solution (often the best one) of the problem. However,there is no guarantee that the obtained solution is the optimal one.
An important parameter of the software is the OptimizationLevel. This will basically tell how many configurations are explored before the best found solutions is outputted. If you set the OptimizationLevel to very low value you will obtain a solution very fast. But the quality of the solution might be not so good. If you set the OptimizationLevel to very high value you will obtain a good solution but not so fast. Thus, one must employ a trade-off between the quality of the solutions and the running time.
References
[1]. Garey, M.R., Johnson D.S., Computers and Intractability: A Guide to NP-completeness, Freeman & Co, San Francisco, USA, 1979.