Ask WWGOA: Laying Out Cuts on Sheet Stock for Optimal Yield

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Question:

I am looking for a way to determine how to most efficiently cut work pieces from 4 x 8 plywood. Is there a service available on the Internet to help me optimize my sheet stock?

Submitted by Maurie1

Answer:

What you’re looking for is called optimization software. With this type of software you can make a list of all the parts you need for a project, and the software will figure out the best way to get them out of a sheet. I use CutList Plus from Bridgewood Design. There are different levels of this software available depending on how much you want to spend and how you want to use it.

I haven’t seen any services provided on the web. The old fashioned way, which I’ve done plenty of times, is to lay it all out on graph paper.

George

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4 Responses to “Ask WWGOA: Laying Out Cuts on Sheet Stock for Optimal Yield”

  1. Barry

    The free one I use is found here (it has more options for cost though) http://www.optimalon.com/online_cut_optimizer.htm

  2. armerlo

    Check out Cutlist here: https://jonathan.overholt.org/projects/cutlist I have used it quire successfully

  3. Ken

    I have a program, "Carpenter Pro" that was written for an older version of IOS (my iPod). When IOS was updated, it no longer runs (on my iPad). Thankfully the old version can print on my printer. I have not found similar software for the Mac. The version of Sketchup that was recently replaced was supposed to be able to do the function requests by Maurie, but I have not been able to make that function work.

  4. Dan

    Are you aware of any optimization software that will run on a Mac? Thanks Dan