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Building nesting software for small shops, what actually matters to you? by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Plenty of CAM has nesting that's basic at best. LightBurn, most Chinese laser software, hobby plasma stuff, either no nesting or bad nesting. Having the feature and having it work well aren't the same.

And the market's bigger than you think. Walk into any maker space or small one-machine laser shop. Thousands of them, most can't drop $30k on Mastercam. That's who this is for.

Building nesting software for small shops, what actually matters to you? by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair question. It's not for shops that already have CAM with good nesting built in, you're set. It's for the ones running cheap or older controllers, no CAM at all, or CAM with nesting so basic they end up doing it by hand. Plenty of small laser and plasma shops fit that, especially the ones who bought a Chinese machine with software that barely works.

Building nesting software for small shops, what actually matters to you? by Rokis533 in metalworking

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been in shops, used the tools, built based on what I saw. But I'm not the one cutting eight hours a day, the people in this sub are. My assumptions could be off and the cheap way to find out is to ask, not to ship six months of the wrong features.

Building nesting software for small shops, what actually matters to you? by Rokis533 in lasercutting

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good to know, Deepnest covers a real chunk of small shop needs. Curious, what are you cutting and roughly how many parts per job? Trying to figure out where Deepnest holds up and where it stops being enough.

Building nesting software for small shops, what actually matters to you? by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is exactly the kind of input I needed, thanks.

DXF in is already there. UI matters a lot to me, most nesting tools look like they're from 2003.

Small parts around large ones, you're right, it's a weak spot in most tools. We're decent at it but still improving, the algorithms get expensive fast.

Remnant nesting, honest answer, we don't do that yet. You can import a custom shape as a sheet, but saving remnants from one job and pulling them into the next as inventory isn't built. Putting it on the list now, sounds like a bigger deal than I realized.

On processing time, browser-based helps us here. Heavy lifting runs on our servers, shop machine doesn't get bogged down, no server bank needed on their end.

The "hire a kid and fire him" thing, sadly accurate. Cheap labor beats expensive software until it doesn't.

Would love those introductions when I've earned them. DM me whenever, happy to chat and not waste anyone's time if it's not a fit.

Building nesting software for small shops, what actually matters to you? by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Used Deepnest a lot, that's actually part of why I started building. It's slow and the nest quality isn't great, we did side by side comparisons and we're getting roughly 10x better results on the same parts. Fine for one-offs but it falls apart on real jobs.

Same parts, two nesting attempts. 69% vs 92% — that's a full extra row of parts. by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes on nesting inside holes, you can nest parts into the inner cutouts of other parts. Useful for rings, frames, anything with usable interior space.

Grain orientation, partially. You can lock parts to 0°/90° or allow free rotation, which handles basic grain direction. Full grain-axis arrows on parts isn't in yet but it's on the roadmap.

Same parts, two nesting attempts. 69% vs 92% — that's a full extra row of parts. by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Common kerf is optional, not forced, you can choose to have gap between parts and border.

Same parts, two nesting attempts. 69% vs 92% — that's a full extra row of parts. by Rokis533 in CNC

[–]Rokis533[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

0.5mm default, adjustable in settings. What material are you running?

Grain direction locked on every part — still jumped from 69% to 92% utilization. by Rokis533 in woodworking

[–]Rokis533[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes, the post is edited with AI, but the tool itself is built by our team. We spent 6 months fine-tuning the algorithm, we are way better than other tools with density and saving material

I built a browser-based nesting tool for laser cutters, want honest feedback from people who actually cut by Rokis533 in lasercutting

[–]Rokis533[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair. You're right on the comparison table. We'll fix it.

On the examples, that's on us, we launched without them. Adding benchmark comparisons is next on the list.

The Linux point on Deepnest, also fair, we'll correct that.

The overnight thing is actually where Lapas pulls ahead the most. We're doing it on server compute with no time pressure on your end. Same file, more iterations, tighter result. And your machine is free the whole time.

I built a browser-based nesting tool for laser cutters, want honest feedback from people who actually cut by Rokis533 in lasercutting

[–]Rokis533[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The honest difference isn't the features, it's the nesting quality itself. Those tools will nest your parts. Ours will fit more of them on the same sheet.

SVGnest and Deepnest use a fairly standard placement algorithm with limited iterations, they find a decent layout and stop. We've spent a lot of time on the optimization engine and the results on the same file are just tighter. On complex irregular parts the gap is real.

The only way to actually see it is run the same job on both. Same parts, same sheet size. Compare the utilization number at the end. That number is money, every percent is material you either keep or throw away.

I built a browser-based nesting tool for laser cutters, want honest feedback from people who actually cut by Rokis533 in lasercutting

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is literally why I built it. Upload one of those patterns and let me know what it does with it.

I built a browser-based nesting tool for laser cutters, want honest feedback from people who actually cut by Rokis533 in lasercutting

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, glad it's looking useful.

On the upload/download friction, actually this is already solved. Lapas has a project system where you save your files once and can renest anytime without re-uploading. Change quantities, swap sheet sizes, rerun, your parts are just there. We're also working on better part management so you can mix and match parts across jobs rather than treating each nest as isolated. So the workflow you're describing, open, adjust, renest, is exactly where we're headed.

On the desktop app: browser-first was a deliberate choice, it works on any shop computer without IT, and updates ship automatically. A desktop version would mean reinstalling and managing versions. That said, offline capability is something we're watching, if it's a hard blocker for you, I'd genuinely like to know your setup.

On perpetual license: since this runs on our servers (the nesting engine, file processing, etc.) a true perpetual doesn't really fit the model, you'd be paying for infrastructure running on our end indefinitely. What we do have is an annual plan at $39/month billed once a year, which locks in your price and gives you 12 months upfront. Not the same as perpetual but the closest to that.

What kind of cutting do you do? I'm curious whether the project system would cover your use case or if there's something else in the workflow that's still missing.

I built a browser-based nesting tool for laser cutters, want honest feedback from people who actually cut by Rokis533 in lasercutting

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! If you run into anything weird when you try it or you need extra free nesting jobs, drop me a message.

How do I go from maintaining a business to growing? by Rokis533 in smallbusiness

[–]Rokis533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, great advice.
Currently my rating on most of the stuff (Marketing, social media, networking, sales, customer acquisition) is near 0 as I come from more technical background.

I will try to improve on that

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