Nesting software

[dogarila]

I am curious what nesting software is available for laser cutting machines, something to read SW data directly without costing an arm and a leg. We use TOPS100 at the moment and it is kind of awkward and it reads only DXFs.

 

[sauersjm]

My company uses TruNEST by Magestic Systems. It has the capability of reading Solidworks models without having to go through the trouble of translating to dxf format. Our machine shop is in the midst of upgrading the software so we no longer have to use dxf.

In terms of cost, I am unable to give you any information. I am not directly involved with the software, I just provide the patterns to be cut.

Here is their website:

http://www.magestic.com/

 

[AnnaWood]

Look at the offerings of SigmaNest.... Might not meet the arm and a leg test though.

http://www.sigmanest.com/

Regards,

Anna Wood
SW 2007 SP4.0, WinXP
Dell Precision 380, Pentium D940, 4 Gigs RAM, FX3450

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/solidmuse

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[Updraft]

We evaluated several different products including the ones mentioned above. We eventually went with a company we had never heard of, but was recommended by our rep from our turret press tooling company. We are very pleased with Punch5 and MasterNest from Computes. It blew all the other packages away that we looked at, including the package offered by our punch press company. It works for punch presses as well as lasers; just identify the destination machines. We too no longer have to create an intermediate DXF file since Punch5 (the part programming portion) is an add-in to SWX. MasterNest then nests the individual Punch5 files as needed to achieve the maximum material utilization and throughput.

- - -Updraft