Dear Wonderful Developers and Support Folks,
I am fairly new to Cura though it seems to be a great product overall just as it is and I want to thank you for all the hard work. For the hobbyist it is wonderful tool and is very appreciated. As we work with our kids to embrace this new way of manufacturing now and in the future, having the ability to show them and let them explore the possibilities seems like a great path forward.
After reading through the forums and working with it for a couple of months, I was wondering if the arrangement for parts feature might be improved. It would seem that there is now a good bit of open-source software for nesting that might go a long way toward making it an easier improvement to accomplish without as much time commitment as a from scratch development. The nesting would seem to be useful for parts placement as well as when working out how to generate and place supports while updating things like the new tree support algorithm in the upcoming 5.x releases.
If I was using Cura for some sort of production work, it would be a huge help so I would think the commercial aspect would have even more of an impact. This would be of extra benefit when multiple copies of the same pieces are being created as well I would think. For the hobbyist, placement is probably less important and things like the tree support improvements are of greater importantnce.
Some code examples using a genetic algorithm are here:
the web version
https://github.com/Jack000/SVGnest
and the desktop version
https://github.com/Jack000/Deepnest
This one is less complete, but takes a graphical approach that while less complex and thorough, would likely be sufficient for 3D printer nesting requirements and has the advantage of using OpenGL GPU for the calculations.
https://github.com/sasam2/nesting
Regardless of any changes, thank you again to all of the support and developers. 🙂
-Corey