NestSmith — Nesting and results

• Can I keep certain parts together?

  Shift-click them on the sheet and press Group (or ⌘G). They freeze in the arrangement you put them in and nest from then on as a single shape. Ungroup hands the pieces back.

• Can I move a part myself?

  Yes. Drag it, nudge it with the arrow keys, rotate it freely with the slider, or pin it so the next run leaves it exactly where it is. Everything is undoable.

• How long does it search?

  As long as you choose. Fast takes about five seconds, Better fifteen, Best thirty, and Keep going runs until you press Stop. Whatever is on screen when it stops is the best layout it found — it never loses a better one.

• Some of my parts overlap in the result. Why?

  They should not, and the app flags them in red. It almost always means a part’s outline crosses itself, which the engine cannot reason about — clean up the stray segment in your design tool and re-import.

• What is the gap between parts for?

  It is the safety margin you want between cuts so neighbouring parts do not scorch or weaken each other, and so pieces survive being popped out. It is separate from the kerf — set it to whatever your material and machine actually need.

• Why is a run slower to start than to finish?

  Before it can search, the engine has to build a collision map of every outline. On a detailed job that build is most of the wait, and nothing moves on the canvas while it happens — the bar across the top of the canvas is there to say it is working. Fast and Better trade a little of that detail fo...