Nesting automation program

[walkrite]

My company prints on Roland XR 640's and HP 360 latex printers. We use Versaworks and Onyx.

We print many small orders every day that need to be nested. We usually keep out sheet lengths between 40 and 75 inches, so the cutting is accurate.

Some days we have 100 or more files that need to printed. Nesting the orders to print takes quite some time. I decided to have someone create a nesting program based on my specific needs. It takes all the eps files in a folder and runs them through a nesting algorithm to make the best use of space and follow my basic rules for sheet width and length. It then puts the nest jobs into numbered folders. We simply drag the folders- numbered 1,2,3,etc into the RIP and that is it. The autoprocess takes just a few seconds to run. This has been saving us hours of manual labor every single day.

Does anyone else have a need for a nesting automation like this? I am curious if there is demand for a software like this. There must be many other printers who print on demand and need to nest lots of unique images on a daily basis. Thoughts?

 

[SightLine]

I would have thought either or both Versaworks or Onyx would have this sort of thing built in. We don't use either so I really don't know. We use FlexiSign Pro which does have a few nesting tools built in which work great. Its been a built in function of Flexi for so long I assumed all major RIP's had nesting tools as standard. As a standalone program though, not sure. It could be handy if you could say, select all files in a folder, tell it the media width, and click go or something though.

 

[particleman]

Onyx actually will do this for you. Set to conserve media, instead of a roll, you need to create a sheet size to match your requirements. Once you do that and queue up your files Onyx will nest them and split them up into separate sheets.

 

[CanuckSigns]

there is a macro for coreldraw that does this as well

 

[walkrite]

Onyx actually will do this for you. Set to conserve media, instead of a roll, you need to create a sheet size to match your requirements. Once you do that and queue up your files Onyx will nest them and split them up into separate sheets.

I have not tried this. Thanks..(not that we need it now

 

[walkrite]

I would have thought either or both Versaworks or Onyx would have this sort of thing built in. We don't use either so I really don't know. We use FlexiSign Pro which does have a few nesting tools built in which work great. Its been a built in function of Flexi for so long I assumed all major RIP's had nesting tools as standard. As a standalone program though, not sure. It could be handy if you could say, select all files in a folder, tell it the media width, and click go or something though.

What you said is exactly what it does. We have it to 48 inches wide, and allow it to vary the sheet length between 40 and 75 inches. We select one folder, sometimes w 100 or more images, and it puts them into new folders, numbered nest jobs, that fit perfectly and make the best use of space.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Do you know where it's from? I'd be interested in trying it out.

As for the OP - if you're talking about nesting several files and printing them together, yes VW and Onyx do this without much effort.

Now if you're talking about nesting odd shapes so that you're not only using the "bounding box" as the dimensions, that I would pay for.

This would come in handy for shape cut jobs and any files that aren't perfectly square or even shaped.

http://www.gdgmacros.com/details.php?toggle2=on&prodId=118f

 

[CanuckSigns]

Thanks! Looks like it would maybe be useful for quick quotes with lots of multiple sizes and quantities...but from the looks of it, it basically does what the RIP programs do.

I was hoping it would nest objects to tuck in (like the stars in the example video) to maximize efficiency, but looks like the overall size or bounding area is still used.

Still worth a look though!

yeah I use it mostly for nesting pipe markers on the gerber edge, I can lay them out in corel, group them by colour and nest into a 11.8" wide area.

 

[particleman]

I'm curious if your software is manipulating vector data or converting the eps files to raster then outputting a combined raster based eps file. I ask because this is the sort of work I do. I recently wrote software that does similar batching functions as to what yours does. It handles only vector data, but batching raster images would be simpler.

Software that does batching by the bounding box is quite a bit simpler to write also (still not easy), but batching based on actual space it occupies is quite a bit more difficult. Luckily the software I wrote did not need this requirement since it was used for roll based digital printing and cutting where the bounds needed to be maintained. I know a lot of people on here are doing uv printing/cutting I could see that feature saving a considerable amount of material. I believe some of the higher end flat bed cutters like zund will do this in their software.

 

[Antnee]

Flexisign Cloud does this. I import a bunch of different size objects into the same art board. Select all then click Nest. Bam everything is nice and neat.

 

[nate]

Thanks! Looks like it would maybe be useful for quick quotes with lots of multiple sizes and quantities...but from the looks of it, it basically does what the RIP programs do.

I was hoping it would nest objects to tuck in (like the stars in the example video) to maximize efficiency, but looks like the overall size or bounding area is still used.

Still worth a look though!

Caldera will do this for you.

http://www.caldera.com/product/options/contour-nesting/

 

[whatsinaname]

I'm curious if your software is manipulating vector data or converting the eps files to raster then outputting a combined raster based eps file. I ask because this is the sort of work I do. I recently wrote software that does similar batching functions as to what yours does. It handles only vector data, but batching raster images would be simpler.

Software that does batching by the bounding box is quite a bit simpler to write also (still not easy), but batching based on actual space it occupies is quite a bit more difficult. Luckily the software I wrote did not need this requirement since it was used for roll based digital printing and cutting where the bounds needed to be maintained. I know a lot of people on here are doing uv printing/cutting I could see that feature saving a considerable amount of material. I believe some of the higher end flat bed cutters like zund will do this in their software.

I know its a very old thread but I would be interested in this software that you wrote for batch function.

We cut stickers out of pre-made materials like carbon fiber etc and have a lots of different sticker outlines that we need to cut in a single job. We move the artworks from various master files which themselves contains hundreds of artworks. We want all our required artworks to be pulled automatically into a single file (preferably in adobe illustrator format or PDF or SVG format) and then automatically nest it. We need just rectangular box nesting. All the true shape artworks will be under their individual rectangular boxes as you can see in the attached images. If nesting is not possible, we can handle the nesting part ourselves using any other software like the Flexi etc.

Can you PM me with more details or can suggest a software that already does this?

 

[whatsinaname]

My company prints on Roland XR 640's and HP 360 latex printers. We use Versaworks and Onyx.

We print many small orders every day that need to be nested. We usually keep out sheet lengths between 40 and 75 inches, so the cutting is accurate.

Some days we have 100 or more files that need to printed. Nesting the orders to print takes quite some time. I decided to have someone create a nesting program based on my specific needs. It takes all the eps files in a folder and runs them through a nesting algorithm to make the best use of space and follow my basic rules for sheet width and length. It then puts the nest jobs into numbered folders. We simply drag the folders- numbered 1,2,3,etc into the RIP and that is it. The autoprocess takes just a few seconds to run. This has been saving us hours of manual labor every single day.

Does anyone else have a need for a nesting automation like this? I am curious if there is demand for a software like this. There must be many other printers who print on demand and need to nest lots of unique images on a daily basis. Thoughts?

I know its a very old thread but I would be interested in this software that you got developed.

We cut stickers out of pre-made materials like carbon fiber etc and have a lots of different sticker outlines that we need to cut in a single job. We move the artworks from various master files which themselves contains hundreds of artworks. We want all our required artworks to be pulled automatically into a single file (preferably in adobe illustrator format or PDF or SVG format) and then automatically nest it.

Can you PM me with more details or can suggest a software that already does this?

 

[bannertime]

I know its a very old thread but I would be interested in this software that you got developed.

We cut stickers out of pre-made materials like carbon fiber etc and have a lots of different sticker outlines that we need to cut in a single job. We move the artworks from various master files which themselves contains hundreds of artworks. We want all our required artworks to be pulled automatically into a single file (preferably in adobe illustrator format or PDF or SVG format) and then automatically nest it.

Can you PM me with more details or can suggest a software that already does this?

Onyx TrueFit does this, but it isn't cheap. FlexiSign&Print or Designer does this. Most of the RIPS can do this. There are scripts in Illustrator and Corel that can do this as well.