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Sketchup Cutlist and Layout |
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Written by Steve
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Thursday, 03 July 2008 |
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 If you're a fan of Sketchup for creating woodworking models, then the next obvious step is to use Sketchup to help you create cutlists and layouts. Sketchup plugin Cutlist 4.0 does just that. CutList 4.0 sketchup plugin helps you determine how much of each material you need to produce your design, taking into account nominal sized lumber with allowances for finishing to final size. Then it goes one further and lays out all of the pieces on boards or sheet good sizes of your choosing. Then you should be all set to head for the lumber yard to get all of the materials that you will need with no return trips. Download it now.
CutList 4.0 is now available for download. The latest version is v4.0.6 released 25 August 2008. Click on the Lumberjocks logo below. This will open another window and you can download the shared file from www.box.net For a forum discussion on this version on Lumberjocks.com go here. For discussion on the previous version v3.3 on Fine Woodworking blog 'Design.Click.Build'.' by Dave Richards go here. There is no charge for this plugin. It has recently completed beta testing by expert professionals and hobbyists to ensure that it is the best quality product possible. Here are some screen shots and a list of features of this latest version. Scroll through the pictures below, click on the picture for a larger image.
List of features available in Sketchup plugin CutList 4.0 - Cutlist is produced from the set of components you select from your model.
- Can automatically select all components if none was selected.
- Splits cutlist into solid wood components, sheet good components or hardware/other parts based on keywords which you select. Keywords can also be specified to exclude items with the '-' options if there is ambiguity between part names. ( For example a hardware 'part' and solid wood 'partition' )
- Summarizes cutlist showing board feet or square feet (for sheet goods) by material and also gives totals.
- Cutlist can be displayed in summary (compact) form, in order of the selected components or in a sorted list.
- Handles metric and imperial measure based on the options selected in your model.
- All options can be saved, with the 'save setting' option. These are stored in a cookie and are reloaded next time you use CutList 4.0.
- CutList output can be saved in CSV format or CSV format compatible with CutListPlus or displayed in an html page.
- OS's set to a Non-English 'locale' will have CSV fies generated using ';' as a field delimiter. This is to allow for countries which use the ',' as a decimal character rather than the".'" ( decimal).
- Layout can be displayed in an html page or saved as a SVG fileand displayed using an SVG reader. Firefox supports SVG ( just open the file using Firefox). MS IE with the Adobe SVG plugin is another option.
- Layout is made on board sizes which you select, both length and width and thickness for boards and length and width for sheet goods.
- Boards can be selected to be specified in a nominal size or actual size. Layout will occur on the nominal size if selected.
- Nominal thicknesses supported are 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 8/4 and 10/4
- Layout options are split into general options,boards and sheets options
- Layout options include 'split wide parts' which splits wide parts in even pieces based on your widest board, 'split thick boards' - will divide parts into pieces based on the thickest board selected.
- Layout on boards when a thickness is specified can include a margin for planing. Part placement will take this into account and board feet will be increased as needed.
- The layout calculates an efficiency usage of each board and an overall efficiency for boards and and an overall efficiency for sheets.
Some things not included in this version: - Saw kerfsize is assumed to be 0.
- Part orientation is assumed to be grain running in the direction of the longest side. No support for part rotation.
Known Issues: - Functional Mac support but there is still an issue between Sketchup and Safari that prevents the layout html display from working. Your alternative is to use the SVG layout format and reading the SVG from Firefox, for example. The solution probably requires a fix to be sorted by Sketchup ( if you could select your browser, this issue would go away - hint Google!) or a different design which avoids the incompatility.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 25 August 2008 )
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