10 tips on using Astra R-Nesting

This article contains tips and tricks that will help you use Astra R-Nesting more efficiently.

1. When creating a list of parts, press the Insert Key or Ctrl+Enter to add a new line. In this case, the next part will inherit the properties of the previous one and you will only need to change some of them. This allows you to reduce the time necessary for entering all of your parts. To add an empty line, press the down arrow key. For more information, see the “Lesson 1 – How to Begin?” and “How to… – Enter Order Data” sections of the help file.

2. The field set on the order form can be modified. For more information, see the “Dialog windows and panels – Order Form” section of the help file.

3. Nesting parameters can be configured for each material individually in the Library. New parameters will be applied to new orders only. If an order has already been created, use the Tools – Options command and specify new nesting parameters for the current order in the “Nesting – For material” section.

4. You can control the complexity of the nesting algorithm. This parameter affects the speed of nesting calculations. As a rule, setting this parameter to “High” considerably increases the calculation time compared to the “Standard” level. To set the nesting complexity level, use the Tools – Options command and go to the “Nesting - General” section.

5. If part thickness is not defined in source parameters during the nesting order import process, you can let the program set it automatically during importing. To do that, use the Tools – Options command and go to the “Nesting - General” section.

6. You can configure the colors of the nesting layout window in the editing more. This will help you make your daily work more convenient. To do that, use the Tools – Options command and go to the “View - Color” section.

7. You can automate the execution of various actions during order creation and nesting. To do that, use the “Tools – Options” command and go to the “Control – Default actions” sections.

8. The Nesting – Send to production command completes an order. When this command is run, unused sheets ad offcuts are removed from the inventory and new cutoffs are added to it. The program assigns numbers to all offcuts in the inventory. Attention! You cannot undo this operation once order nesting has started. You can also run this command by clicking a corresponding button on the Standard Toolbar.

9. If you’ve already nested an order, but then decided to add more parts to it, you can nest these parts on new sheets or manually nest them on existing layouts. However, in some cases, we recommend completely resetting exiting layouts and performing nesting once again, since adding new parts will generate completely new layouts.

10. The properties of any part can be changed directly on a layout. This allows you to make better decisions about the rational use of materials – for instance, if a part does not fit into a free area on a layout, but the current design allows you to reduce the size of the part, you can do that instead of using a new sheet for nesting this part. To change part properties in the layout editing mode, select a part, run the “Part properties” command from the context menu, change the necessary properties and click OK.