Line 1 to 6

Lines starting with "#" are comments. There is no limit to the number of comment lines.

The 'AutoNEST V9 English’ must be in one of the comment lines. The ‘V9’ reference number is used to check the different formats of (.JOB) files for different software releases.

‘English’ indicates what language version of current AutoNest you are using.

Line 7

Number of distinct parts (Range: 1 to 1000)

Line 8

The 1st digit represents the number of distinct regular stocks

Range : 1 to 5000 (max. value as set in ANEST.SYS)

The 2nd digit represents the number of distinct irregular stocks

Range : 1 to 5000 (max. value as set in ANEST.SYS)

The 3rd digit represents “Multi-Stock Control”

0 - means “Auto”

1 - means “Best Yield”

2 - means “Lowest Cost”

“Auto” is the default setting and is the fastest option where the nesting engine will appraise the parts and stocks and then automatically selects the largest suitable Stock to nest.

“Best Yield” - in this option the nesting engine will iterate through each Stock size to nest the available parts. For each nested Stock , it will compare the nested utilization area of Stock and then select the one with the highest utilization. It will continue to iterate until all the parts or stocks are used up.

“Lowest Cost” - in this option the nesting engine will iterate through each Stock size to nest the available parts. For each nested Stock, it will compare the Nested Area per Cost of Stock and then select the one with the highest Nested Area per unit cost.

For this option to work, the “Cost per Stock” must be specified.

Both the “Best Yield” and “Lowest Cost” will take a longer time to nest.

***The more the number of distinct Stocks, the longer it will take to nest for “Best Yield” or “Lowest Cost” options***

If either “Best Yield” or “Lowest Cost” option is selected, the Stock Priority will be ignored.

Line 9

1st parameter denotes “Cutting gap” (Max field length : 14 real nos.)

2nd parameter denotes “Shear Blade Limit”.

(Max field length : 14 real nos, >=0.0) If this value is “0” - it means NO shear nesting required;

if greater than “0” then it means “Yes” to shear nesting.

Line 10

Edge allowance [x] and [x1] (Left and right side of the regular stock)

Max field length: 14 (real nos.)

Line 11

Edge allowance [y] and [y1] (Bottom and top of the regular stock) and Edge allowance of irregular stock.

Max field length: 14 (real nos.)

Line 12

Nesting control parameters.

The 1st parameter can be:

‘D’ - means single part nesting with highest Density (in single array)

‘M’ - means single part nesting with Maximum quantity (in single array)

‘C’ - means single part nesting with Combination of density & maximum qty (in mixed array)

‘E’ - means extension - long nest.

The 2nd parameter is to specify which type of stock to be used first if there are both Regular Stock and Irregular Stock in the same job/ task.

‘R’ - means nest all Regular Stocks first before any Irregular Stocks

‘I’ - means nest all Irregular Stocks first before any Regular Stocks.

The 3rd parameter is for Packing Start Point

1   Left Bottom

2   Left Top

3   Right Top

4   Right Bottom

The 4th parameter is for Packing direction control

1   Horizontal Packing

2   Vertical Packing

3   Auto (System Control)

4   Horizontal Packing for All Stocks

5   Vertical Packing for All Stocks

The 5th parameter is for Common Line option

0   Without Common Line Consideration

1   With Common Line Consideration

The 6th parameter is for Mirror option (Single part only)

0   Do NOT allow Part Mirror

1   Allow Part Mirror

2   Nest Half Quantity with Mirrored Parts

The 7th parameter is for Ignore Part Hole option

0   Ignore ‘Hole’ of part (will not nest any parts inside part holes)

1   Do NOT ignore ‘hole’ of part (will nest smaller parts inside part holes)

The 8th parameter is for Save Remnant option

0   Do NOT save remnant stocks

1   Save remnant stocks into .STK files.

The 9th and 10th parameters are for Min. Remnant Size in X and Y. Only remnant stocks that are greater than this Min. Remnant Size will be saved into .stk files onto the default Part/ Ir-Stock directory and provided the “Save Remnant” option (8th parameter) is set to 1.

The 11th and 12th parameters are for ‘Parts Priority Control’.

11th parameter is for “Max. No. of Priority per Stock” (Integer >=0

12th parameter is for “Min. Nest-able Remaining Space” percentage. (real nos.)

Line 13-14

A list of distinct regular stocks. Each line has the following format:

  Stock-Width x Stock-Length Quantity Priority Cost-per-Stock

Priority of the stocks. 1 has the highest priority whereas 99 has the lowest priority. This refers to the priority for regular stocks only.

Only the first 5 parameters are being used. The last 2 are for future use.

Line 15 - 16

A list of distinct irregular stocks (ir-stock). Each line has the following format:

    &ir-stock Quantity Priority Rotate-able

‘&’ is a prefix to differentiate the irregular stock from the regular stock.

ir-stock is the .STK file name (ir-stock). The .STK file stores the ir-stock geometry profile.

Quantity refers to the quantity of the irregular stock.

Priority of the ir-stock to be nested. 1 has the highest priority whereas 99 has the lowest priority. This refers to the priority for the irregular stock.

Rotate-able has two options. “Y” means able to rotate the ir-stock and “N” means no rotation of the ir-stock.

Line 17-20

A list of distinct Parts.

Number of lines depends on number of distinct Parts. Each line has the following format:

Part-quantity Part-name (Orientation constraints) Pairing Priority Block-name Filler-quantity Support+180 Step-angle

Part-quantity - integer number (range: 1 - 9999)

(Note: for Single Part tasks of fixed size stocks, part-quantity can be ‘M’ to indicate unlimited quantity of the Part)

Part-name - string, 30 characters long (no space characters allowed)

Orientation constraints - there are 2 formats to define orientation constraints. Both are acceptable and can co-exit in the same file.

Format A

Combination of any angles between 0 and 360 (separated by SPACE such as :-

(30 60 90 180 …) or (ALL)

Format B

This new format is helpful if the Orientation angles consist of a long list and if the angles increase by a constant value.

     (step 10 0 180)

where:

step is the reserved word to denote “increment angle”

     10   is the increment angle (must be greater than 0 and a positive value)

      0    is the Start Angle (real nos., range -360 ~ +360)

180  is the End Angle (real nos, must be greater than Start Angle)

If represented in Format A ….

(0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 ….…180)

Pairing - ‘Y’ means allow part pairing. ‘N’ means do not allow part pairing. Currently, not in use.

Priority - Priority of the parts to be nested. 1 has the highest priority, 2 has the second highest and so on.

Block-name - Part details block name. Part detail block is a DWG file containing more detail information of the part. In the current version, it will be the same as Part-name.

Filler-quantity - integer number (range: 1- 9999). Additional quantity for filling up available space.

Support+180 - 1 means allow the part orientation angle + 180 degree. Eg. if part allows 30 degree orientation, 30 + 180 = 210 degree will also be allowed.

0 means “No” to “+180” degrees for part orientation.

Step-angle - an incremental step angle for seeking the best nesting pattern. Reducing the step-angle will have higher chance to get a better nesting result but it will also increase the nesting time.

Line 21

The 1st parameter indicates starting of Auto-Bridge parameters.

The 2nd parameter is the bridge width.

The 3rd parameter is the minimum corner offset.

The 4th parameter is the minimum angle (range 45~90 deg).

The 5th parameter is the maximum number of bridges per part.

(See below for illustration of these parameters)

Line 22

Skeleton-Cut-Off parameters

The 1st parameter is the X-Spacing or No. of X equal spacings.

The 2nd parameter is the Y-Spacing or No. of Y equal spacings.

The 3rd parameter is the offset distance from part profile or skeleton-bridge.

The 4th parameter : 1 indicates that 1st & 2nd parameters are real values.

2 indicates that 1st & 2nd parameters are actually no. of equal spacings for X and Y respectively, not the real values.

(See below for the illustration of Skeleton-Cut-Off parameters)