Nesting into random shapes

[Thirteen (Mr 13)]

Hey gang,
Im cutting leather, as we all know leather hides are random in nature. I’ve got a camera setup and i fit my pieces like a jigsaw on to the leather to get the most optimal use of materials.
I’ve seen the selection of nesting tools available. However i was wondering if someone has an idea on how i can capture the shape of the leather, perhaps with the camera via a trace and then nest all the pieces as optimally as possible. This for me would be a MASSIVE time saver. The ability to capture the cutting material/object shape and then auto nest all the parts to the most optimal output.

Any ideas ? Cheers

[ednisley]

@Thirteen

capture the shape of the leather

If you have the leather trimmed so it’s all usable and can put it on a high-contrast background, then the camera works just about as (I think) you want.

Some shop wipes arranged on cardboard to simulate a cow wrapper:

Grab it with the camera in the lid:

Tap the Trace button and dink around with the parameters to get a good outline:

Which surely includes a bunch of clutter around the edges:

Ungroup the mess, select just the outline of the cow wrapper, Ctrl-Shift-i to select everything else, then tap Delete to get rid of the clutter.

Export it as an SVG, just in case something goes wrong, copy it to the clipboard, load the LB file with the rest of your shapes, paste the cow wrapper, and select All. The. Things.:

Hand that to the nesting tool, let it chew for a while, and it’s all good:

Download the SVG, import into the LB file with all your cutting parameters, tweakify, and Fire The Laser!