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 work in progress and may change frequently. It is currently available in English and French. Translations may be provided at a later date.
This document may describe features not yet released!
This documentation applies to OpenCutList Version 6.0.0 and higher. Some features may not be available in older versions of OpenCutList. Not all features are available in all 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 for material of type Sheet Goods, than it will be for Solid Wood (Rough Lumber).
Dimension and Orientation of Parts
OpenCutList extracts the bounding boxes from SketchUp components (but not groups!) or selection of components in a scene in order to compute length, width and thickness of these visible parts of the model. The interpretation of length, width and thickness is either
automatic by assuming that the greatest dimension is the length and the smallest dimension is the thickness (see Options), or
defined by convention, 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.
You may change this behavior for a single part and fix length, width and thickness in the properties of the part.
Defining front and back of a part is not always necessary, but in certain cases it becomes very important. We define the front face to be the face that is most positive on the thickness axis, while the least positive face will be considered the back 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 about the way OpenCutList works are available under Components.
OpenCutList was written for use in woodworking projects, but may be suited 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 users willing and able to read French a good entry point is 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 woodworker exchange platform. Thanks to a dedicated team of translators working on Transifex, we are able to offer this extension in many languages.
If you notice an incorrect term or if you have 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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