nesting 3D

Hi there,
first of all I wanted to thank you for all the help you gave me and which allowed me to increase my basic knowledge of Excel VBA and after that to create a couple of projects by myself.

Now I am dealing with another challenge and I would appreciate some advices on nesting 3D.

This is the scenario: I have some structural panels, which number varies and according to project needs I provide cuts on these panels in order to fit. These panels have tongue and groove connection, so after cutting I may have female-cut or male-cut panels.
Furthermore, I may need to cut the panels at a certain height as well.

My goal is to minimize waste of panels subsequent panel cutting.
I usually work in Autocad, and I can start off by creating 3D blocks or solids. I created some stretchable 3D blocks with 3D faces and set the attributes so that as soon as my panels lenght vary the attributes also update. Unluckily I can't set the height parameter so that my block would stretch as well but I created another attribute for user to write.

What I'm asking is the following: can I export the attribute values of my blocks so that I can manage the data in Excel to calculate the required number of panels and the waste sqmt?

I know I can export a .csv file with retrieved data from a Autocad file, but I don't know how to handle such data to perform what I need..

I don't know even if this is the right approach or if I can get the same results in Excel without the use of Autocad, via data entry of the panels. The latter may be of great use if the user is not technical enough to draw in Autocad..

I attach a sample Excel file with some possible situation to handle.

I know it's not the easiest project to handle but if someone could give me some advices that would be greatly appreciated.

bye
P.

Hi Tony, and thanks for your interest in this project! :-)

Actually if I plan to import a Autocad .csv file, I will have the info of height, width and panel cut type (female-cut, male-cut, whole panel).
I don't know a lot of programming, and this is basically why I'm here to ask for help.
Anyway, I'm just asking if the csv file importing and Excel to calculate the minimum number of boards required is the right/easiest way to accomplish the task OR performing the calculation in Autocad (it's possible to program in there with LISP or VBA as well) and export only the results of such calculations to Excel.
When I talk about calculation in Autocad, I'm thinking about achieving the results by combining the shapes (read solids) in the drawings by overlapping them and by reading the "overflow".
As an alternative, I insert the 3 info about each panel and the total number of panels for each type and perform all the calculations from that within Excel.

Don't know which way is possible, and which one is best.. in a few minutes I created a very basic Excel macro to calculate a 1D nesting (only for study purpose of course), very simple it requires only a RoundUp formula, given whole panel length, cut panel length and number of cut panels. Of course the 2D and 3D nesting would be by far more difficult to get...

bye
P.

PS: Tony, pm for you in minutes..

Hi Tony, and Hi forum :-)

Sorry for the late reply, but it's a very busy working day..
Attached you'll find a Autocad 2008 file containing a solid and a 3d dynamic block I created.
This is only the female-cut type panel, please consider the male-cut is just the same.
Whole type panels have only height attribute.

If you try to export csv files from Autocad you'll see you can restrict the exporting values to only blocks, and retrieve only the info you need: in this case only the blocks attributes.

Bye and thanks for your time! :-)
P.

Hi Tony, and Hi forum

I know nesting 3D is maybe a quite difficult topic but since I didn't know for a while and my need is real I just wanted to ask you which one is the 'right' approach to handle the task.

At the moment I don't know if the calculation of the minimum number of panels required is possible/easier to perform in Excel - starting by a data entry or data import from Autocad data-extraction - or within Autocad itself - by retrieving data from solids/blocks (VBA as well even there).

What I would like to know from forum gurus like you, the moderators or some other valuable contributor is if this is a topic never encountered, what are your considerations, your impressions, in order to allow me to more forward.

If I wasn't clear in my previous posts about my needs, please feel free to ask for more infos.

Thanks again for your time
P.

Hey tony and hey forum,
it's been a while but I still don't see developments on this thread.
Maybe this project is too difficult or time consuming to handle or I wasn't clear enough in my explanation.
Anyone else may light some dark if this would even be possible to achieve in VBA or just head me in the right direction?
This is an important project to me, and I am willing to dedicate and invest my time to make developments and improvements, just I don't know precisely where to start.
If you could just spot and list the macro processes and steps involved in a project like this, so that I can see what's behind the project I'm asking that would be much appreciated.

Thanks again for your support.
P.