Is there an extension that will lay out a number of objects such as to minimize the waste material? I have tried searching using; arrange, pack, packing, nest, and more, with no luck.
Not that I heard of. I fully understand the question as I have constantly to do with it in 3d modelling where we need to unwrap objects and sufficient packing is needed - not the easiest task to implement. I have no clue if that is possible with Inkscape as it might needs to rotate certain shapes for optimal space usage - I could be wrong. Interesting question though.
Thanks to both of you! I just tried deepnest.io, and it does what I want.
PixelPest, you might want to try it.
The only problem I see with it, is that it places every object by calculating its bounding box, so that (for example), two boomerangs will not nest as well as you can do it manually. I see this same sort of thing in slicers for 3D printing, where the objects are said to be overlapping, but only if the bounding boxes overlap.
I do understand that nesting according to the object's outline is a MUCH harder programming problem, and certainly beyond my capabilities.
Beyond the Basics Would like an extension.
Inkscape.org
Is there an extension that will lay out a number of objects such as to minimize the waste material? I have tried searching using; arrange, pack, packing, nest, and more, with no luck.
Not that I heard of. I fully understand the question as I have constantly to do with it in 3d modelling where we need to unwrap objects and sufficient packing is needed - not the easiest task to implement. I have no clue if that is possible with Inkscape as it might needs to rotate certain shapes for optimal space usage - I could be wrong. Interesting question though.
Open source nesting software.
https://deepnest.io
Thanks to both of you! I just tried deepnest.io, and it does what I want.
PixelPest, you might want to try it.
The only problem I see with it, is that it places every object by calculating its bounding box, so that (for example), two boomerangs will not nest as well as you can do it manually. I see this same sort of thing in slicers for 3D printing, where the objects are said to be overlapping, but only if the bounding boxes overlap.
I do understand that nesting according to the object's outline is a MUCH harder programming problem, and certainly beyond my capabilities.
It doesn´t help with 3d because we need to used the UV islands where there are packed before exporting any image file format with it.
But it can handle "deep nesting":
Interesting. How did you get it to nest them that way?
Deepnest.app has properties under "Nesting configuration" - go "Optimization type" and choose "Squeeze" as type.