Nest shapes for material efficiency
Pack many parts onto a single sheet with minimum waste. Beam Bench runs the math; you set the constraints.
When cutting many parts from a sheet of material, manual layout wastes time and material. The Nest dialog packs the selection automatically, you set spacing and constraints, it finds an efficient arrangement.
What you need
- Multiple parts (shapes) to nest, already drawn or imported.
- A workspace sized to your sheet.
Steps
1. Select the parts
Select all the shapes you want to nest. Group selection in Select tool, drag a marquee around them or Ctrl+A to select all.
2. Open the Nest dialog
Menu: Arrange → Nest Selected. See Nest dialog.
3. Set constraints
- Minimum Spacing: required gap between any two parts. At minimum, set this to twice your kerf to avoid cuts running into each other. Add a safety margin (0.5-1 mm) for material variation.
- Allow Rotation: let the packer rotate parts to fit better. Turn on unless rotation is meaningful (e.g. wood grain direction matters).
- Allow Mirror: let the packer mirror parts. Turn on only if mirrored versions are acceptable.
- Lock Inner Objects: preserve internal geometry positions (text-inside-frame, etc.).
4. Nest
Click Nest. The dialog closes and the packing runs asynchronously. Watch the canvas, the parts rearrange into a packed layout.
5. Adjust the workspace
If the nested layout extends outside the bed, increase the workspace size in the machine profile or reduce the part count for this batch.
6. Frame and cut
Frame the nested layout to verify all parts fit on the material. Then cut.
When to use kerf compensation
For nested cuts, set per-layer Kerf on the cut layer (see Kerf compensation) before nesting. The Minimum Spacing in Nest sets gap between paths; kerf removes the laser's burn area from inside each part.
If your parts will be press-fit assemblies (slot-and-tab), the kerf and tolerance need to be carefully tuned, see Cut acrylic with kerf compensation.
Tips
- For irregular shapes, larger Minimum Spacing values pack more conservatively but waste less material than tight spacings that fail to pack.
- Many small parts pack better than a few large parts because the packer has more flexibility.
- Mirror disabled is the right default for parts with chirality (left-vs-right gear shapes).
Verify it worked
- All parts are inside the workspace bounds.
- No two parts overlap or touch.
- The arrangement looks reasonable (no obvious large gaps).