NestSmith — Getting started

• Do I need an account?

  No. Nesting is free and unlimited, with the full engine at full speed — no time limits, no watermarks, no reduced quality. An account is only needed for Pro features like multi-sheet, costing and saving projects to the cloud.

• How does it know what to cut and what to engrave?

  By layer name first: anything named engrave, etch, raster, mark or fill is treated as engraving. Failing that it falls back to how the shapes are painted, and you can override it per file with the Inside setting — Auto, Engrave, or Cut.

• How do I keep a design together instead of it being scattered?

  Set the file’s Layout to "Groups" — each group in your file becomes one part, and its cut and engrave travel together. If a file has no groups, use "One part" for the whole file, or select pieces on the sheet and press Group to weld them yourself.

• What files can I bring in?

  SVG, LightBurn (.lbrn2 and .lbrn), xTool (.xcs and .xs), Illustrator (.ai) and PDF. Everything is converted to SVG on the way in, so grouping and the cut/engrave split behave the same whatever it started as.

• What is NestSmith?

  NestSmith packs your parts onto a sheet so you waste as little material as possible. It nests by the real outline of each shape rather than its bounding box, so pieces tuck into each other the way they would if you arranged them by hand — only faster and tighter. It runs in your browser; nothing ...