Hi everyone,
I’m a digital fabrication trainer from France (CNC and laser, a lot of it around wood). For the past months I’ve been building the nesting tool I always wanted inside Rhino — and it’s releasing in the coming days, so I wanted to show it here first.
What it does:
- One command: select your 3D model (closed polysurfaces), and the parts lay themselves flat onto your sheets — with mirrored parts flagged, labels, and per-sheet fill rate.
- Then the part I care most about: manual adjustment with guaranteed spacing. Every part drags with magnetic contact along its neighbors — it slides, hugs, and stops. Rotate with R, mirror, extract and re-drop. Spacing is enforced the whole time, nothing to double-check.
- Output: cut list (HTML/CSV/Excel), fill rates, and layered DXF ready for toolpaths (through-pockets and blind pockets on separate layers).
Why “interactive” is the whole point: the nesting engine is deliberately not chasing “optimal”. Automation has two blind spots — the material flaw only you can see (a knot in the sheet, a scar on a leather hide — it’s not in the file), and the obvious layout the solver missed. So the engine is built to be fast, and the drag is built to let you take over without losing the spacing guarantee. Great tools already exist on the algorithmic side (OpenNest and others) — this one bets on the hand.
The honest fine print: it’s free. The UI is French at launch — English is on the roadmap. Rhino 8, Windows.
Releasing in the coming days. Happy to answer questions — feedback very welcome.
