Introduction
This document explains how to get the most out of OpenCutList, a SketchUp Extension. It is intentionally kept very brief to make it easier to translate.
The present documentation is a work in progress and may change frequently. It is currently available in English and French. Translations into other languages may become available in the future.
This document may describe features not yet released!
This documentation applies to OpenCutList Version 6.0.0 and higher. Some of the features described here may not be available in older versions. Also, some features may not be available in some versions of SketchUp, due to incompatibilities with newer libraries.
We assume that the reader is familiar with SketchUp.
What is OpenCutList?
OpenCutList is a tool for creating Parts Lists, Cutting Diagrams, Printable Lists of Labels, Cost and Weight Estimates and Exploded Views for woodworking projects designed in SketchUp.
The Best SketchUp CutList Plugin :-)
Approach
A certain number of assumptions had to be made in order to make OpenCutList useful. The interpretation of length, width and thickness, as well as which side of a part is the front face and which one is the back face have to be agreed upon. Material information is provided in the form of SketchUp material, enhanced by OpenCutList attributes. Furthermore, a classification of the material helps the tool take advantage of the specificities of each type of material. Processing will be different depending on the type of materials (for example, Sheet Goods compared to Solid Wood (Rough Lumber)).
Dimension and Orientation of Parts
OpenCutList extracts the bounding boxes from SketchUp components (not groups!) or a selection of components in a scene, in order to compute the lengths, widths and thicknesss of these visible parts of the model. The interpretation of length, width and thickness can be or two types:
automatic, so that the greatest dimension is the length and the smallest dimension is the thickness (see Options); or
defined from the local axes, so that the length is read on the red local axis, the width on the green local axis, and the thickness on the blue local axis.
The actual behavior may be specified for each part, and its length, width and thickness defined in the properties of the part.
Defining the front and back of a part is not always necessary, but may be very important in certain cases. The front face is defined as most positive along the thickness axis, and the back face as the least positive face.
Material of Parts
By applying SketchUp material to the components and configuring its parameters, OpenCutList is able to find the best raw material matching the dimensions of the Part and efficiently compute a Parts List. For certain types of material, Cutting Diagrams can be computed. Estimates with material and cost summaries can also be generated.
Further explanations on how OpenCutList works are available under Components.
OpenCutList was written for use in woodworking projects, but may be suitable for other trades and projects as well.
For the Impatient
A list of FAQ in this documentation answers common questions.
Links to video tutorials on YouTube are directly available from within OpenCutList.
For French-speaking users, two good entry points are the Blog L'Air du Bois and L'Air du Bois on Youtube.
Open Source
OpenCutList is Open Source Software (hosted on github) developed by Boris Beaulant and Martin Müller of L'Air du Bois, a French-speaking woodworking exchange platform. Thanks to a dedicated team of translators working on Transifex, this extension is available in many languages.
If you notice an incorrect term or want to suggest a better one, please send us an email (using the Bug Report button).
Financial Contributions
We have an OpenCollective account, where supporters can make a financial contribution to support and encourage our work.
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