Nesting Controls
At a glance
- Three effort levels: Quick, Medium, Max — selectable per nest run
- Kerf-based part spacing — built-in efforts keep one kerf width between neighboring cuts
- Custom efforts in the Auto-Nest settings dialog: algorithm, rotation granularity, spacing in kerf widths, time limit
- Lock parts to pin them in place; locked parts act as fixed obstacles for the algorithm
- Rip Up button to clear all nested positions and start over
- Auto-nest on import option — nest incoming parts immediately
- Use an imported, Drafting, or Design part as a custom plate with concavities, holes, and separate material islands
The Auto-Nest split button in the Parts browser is nesting mission control. Clicking the button itself toggles nest-on-import: with the dot green, freshly imported parts nest immediately using your default effort; red means imports stage loose and wait. The dropdown lists the three built-in efforts — Quick (skyline), Medium and Max (NFP edge-walk) — plus any custom efforts. The radio picks the import default; clicking a name runs that nest right now. Placements stream in live as the worker computes them, and the button becomes Cancel while a nest is running.
Use a part as the plate
Import the plate outline as a normal part from a file, Drafting, or Design. Right-click that exact part on the canvas or in the Parts browser and choose Set Plate Shape. A loose part becomes the active sheet; a part already placed on a sheet becomes that sheet. The source part leaves the Parts list while it is serving as stock.
Closed outside contours become material. Closed holes become true voids, and separate outside contours remain separate material islands. Concave edges and arcs keep their real shape. The canvas fills the usable material and meshes the missing areas, so a round blank, an L-shaped remnant, and a plate with holes are immediately distinct from a rectangular sheet.
The sheet row gains a Custom Plate badge. Its details show the source name, actual size, and the saved rectangular Width and Height. Those dimensions stay read-only until you choose Release Plate Shape from the sheet details or sheet-row menu. Release restores the rectangle and brings the source back as a loose part. To swap remnants, right-click another eligible part and choose Replace Plate Shape; JetCad3 restores the old source as it installs the new one.
Auto-Nest, Fill Sheet, manual dragging and typed transforms all respect the actual material and voids. A part can surround a stock void only when its own through-hole is large enough; cut material and leads cannot cross missing stock. Duplicate Sheet copies a custom plate deliberately. Add Sheet creates a rectangle. When nesting exhausts a custom plate, JetCad3 tries the other existing sheets and then creates rectangular overflow sheets using the retained Width, Height, and cut settings.
Spacing, obstacles, and overflow
Plasma nest spacing is kerf-based: built-in efforts keep one kerf width between neighboring cut paths, measured from the actual toolpath offsets using the active sheet's cut chart — tighter with a fine consumable, looser with a heavy one, automatically. Locked parts (and anything already nested) are fixed obstacles the algorithm packs around, so you can pin a remnant-filling part and nest the rest. Nesting fills the active sheet first (including loose parts), overflows to other existing sheets in order, and creates a retained-size rectangular sheet if parts still remain. Rip Up Nest clears every unlocked part back to the staging area — it never re-nests on its own, so you can rearrange before running again.
Custom efforts
Settings… in the dropdown opens the effort editor. A custom effort names its own combination of: algorithm (Skyline or NFP edge-walk), rotation granularity, nesting spacing from 1 to 100 kerf widths, a placement scan/candidate spacing in kerf widths, a time limit in minutes, a Concavity threshold controlling whether complex outlines keep concave detail or collapse to a convex hull for collision, and a start corner — follow the sheet origin or force a fixed gravity corner. Custom efforts appear in the dropdown alongside the built-ins and can be the import default.