Genetic algortihms for nesting

SVGnest is a free and open-source alternative that solves this problem with a geometric approach, using a genetic algorithm for global optimization. It works for arbitrary containers and concave edge cases, and performs on-par with existing commercial software.

I think there will be a lot of cross posting with hackaday once we get our glowforges. :grinning:

demo link: http://svgnest.com/

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Wow - THANK you! Bookedmarked it in my Glowforge Bookmark list :slightly_smiling:

That looks like it could be very useful, thanks for posting it!

Very cool

This is amazing!!!

That’s incredible! Thanks for sharing!

Oh my Snorg!! This is fabulous! Thank you!

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Heck, this would be super useful with 3D printer bed layouts too!

This is very, very cool. Awesome find!

There already is a lot of cross-posting :slight_smile: Fortunately I was smart enough to check if it was already posted here before I did a thread of my own (made that mistake once already…).

I am hoping that @dan and @tony will make sure that this is built in to the software somewhere as a simple button click option.

It sure would, but I can only imagine how many iterations would be required, since it would have to check 3 dimensions for fit instead of just two!

Oh, it’s open source. I am going to have to look at it. I wonder if the genetics algorithm used is similar to the backpack packing algorithm I modified to pack the fewest amount of DVDs possibly when given a list of files to backup. That was complex enough working in 2 dimensions.

Hoppered!

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This is good. Will have to try it out. It’s cold outside and a little nesting would be nice and comfy.

If anyone is concerned with wood grain direction you can change the part rotation to 2, but for acrylic and cardboard let it ride with the defaults.

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Hmm… well, I’d really only need it to optimize for the points touching the surface. But, if you were printing with supports and just had to pack the entire build area with parts that would definitely be true!

It looks like it is sharing cut edges on vertical and horizontal lines. Is anyone using this to cut? Does it reduce thos lines to a single cut or does it cut twice?