Sketchup/Cutlist Plug-in Bug/Limitation
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:58 pm
For those of you that work (or want to work) with SketchUP and the CutList 4.0 plug-in, I've identified a limitation with the application that I'd like to share.
If you draw a project in which all the piece-parts are "normal" (edges align with an X, Y or Z axis) you're OK. If you are drawing a project in which a part is angled or oblique, you will experience an "oddity" with CutList. For some reason, CutList can take parts that are built upon the top, front, or side surfaces and automatically rotate them into a flat pattern in the same plane and determine a cutting pattern, but if the part is angled, or oblique it will calculate a "bounding box" around the item with the normal X, Y and Z axes, and place THAT in the flat pattern. This can cause unintended consequences.
Example 1: I'm drawing a Library Chair, and the picture below is the 3 crossbars across the backrest of the chair. They are all 2.25" x 15" made of 3/4" material. The parts are rotated slightly as they go up the backrest of the chair. Looking at the attached pic, you'll see that CutList created a bounding box around each of the parts that are normal to the X, Y and Z axes. What this did, was create 3 different pieces in the CutList diagram, each piece was 14" wide, but each piece was a different height and thickness. This also placed each piece on a separate board in the CutList diagram, each board being a different thickness.
Example 2: In the same Library Chair model, there's a leg piece that is angled as shown below. Again, it created a bounding-box normal to the X, Y and Z axes, and the resulting diagram showed a piece 11" wide by 16" high, instead of rotating the item normal to the axes where you'd have a piece 1-1/2" wide by 19" long. This caused 2 problems, first, inefficient use of the wood, and second, the grain wouldn't be running "with" the part, reducing strength.
I've found a workable solution to these limitations... I make extensive use of "scenes" and "layers" in SketchUp. I create a scene of the assembled part (as built) and create a second copy of angled or oblique objects in the model that have been rotated on axes. The assembled view is stored in one scene, the second scene I hide (or turnoff visibility to the layer) of the oblique or angled parts and display the rotated copies. I call that scene the CutList scene. Then before I run CutList, I display the CutList scene, do a Ctrl-A (Select All) and run CutList as normal. It then works fine.
If you draw a project in which all the piece-parts are "normal" (edges align with an X, Y or Z axis) you're OK. If you are drawing a project in which a part is angled or oblique, you will experience an "oddity" with CutList. For some reason, CutList can take parts that are built upon the top, front, or side surfaces and automatically rotate them into a flat pattern in the same plane and determine a cutting pattern, but if the part is angled, or oblique it will calculate a "bounding box" around the item with the normal X, Y and Z axes, and place THAT in the flat pattern. This can cause unintended consequences.
Example 1: I'm drawing a Library Chair, and the picture below is the 3 crossbars across the backrest of the chair. They are all 2.25" x 15" made of 3/4" material. The parts are rotated slightly as they go up the backrest of the chair. Looking at the attached pic, you'll see that CutList created a bounding box around each of the parts that are normal to the X, Y and Z axes. What this did, was create 3 different pieces in the CutList diagram, each piece was 14" wide, but each piece was a different height and thickness. This also placed each piece on a separate board in the CutList diagram, each board being a different thickness.
Example 2: In the same Library Chair model, there's a leg piece that is angled as shown below. Again, it created a bounding-box normal to the X, Y and Z axes, and the resulting diagram showed a piece 11" wide by 16" high, instead of rotating the item normal to the axes where you'd have a piece 1-1/2" wide by 19" long. This caused 2 problems, first, inefficient use of the wood, and second, the grain wouldn't be running "with" the part, reducing strength.
I've found a workable solution to these limitations... I make extensive use of "scenes" and "layers" in SketchUp. I create a scene of the assembled part (as built) and create a second copy of angled or oblique objects in the model that have been rotated on axes. The assembled view is stored in one scene, the second scene I hide (or turnoff visibility to the layer) of the oblique or angled parts and display the rotated copies. I call that scene the CutList scene. Then before I run CutList, I display the CutList scene, do a Ctrl-A (Select All) and run CutList as normal. It then works fine.
