New to Sketchup as a hobbiest. Trying to make simple drawings and cut lists for some shop cabinets. I find CabMaker extension useful and trying to produce cut lists using OpenCutList. CabMaker does not seem to produce components, therefore OpenCutList does not find any components to make the cut list(s). Is there an easy way to explode the cabinet to see all the components or easily define components? If you have other suggestions for wood working extensions for projects and cut lists, I am open to recommendations.
First of all, what version of SketchUp are you actually using? Your profile says “Free Plan” and lists 2023. That would indicate the web version which can’t use extensions.
I don’t use CabMaker for modeling cabinets so I don’t know what it’s creating. If the individual parts of the cabinets are created as groups or components and then nested to keep the parts together, exploding the top level might be all you need. If you explode all of the objects you’ll end up with a mass of loose geometry and yuo won’t be able to get a cutlist at all.
if it’s creating groups for all of the parts you could edit them and convert them to components. I use a different cutlist extension that recognizes groups. It’s called CutList 4.1 and is available from the Extension Warehouse.
FWIW, I prefer making compoents of all of the parts in a model, copying them as appropriate. I find many benefits to that. As far as cut lists go, I don’t end up with a line item for every single part.
I’ve never found it necessary to use a cabinet making extension for modeling cabinets. Even for large kitchens, they are simple enough to do without. I use extensions for modeling some joinery but most of the extensions I use aren’t specific to woodworking or cabinetmaking.
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sorry, version 23.0.418 Mac desktop version. Your recommended extension worked so I have a cut list. Still learning SketchUp though. Not even sure how to “disassemble” the cabinet object so that I can see all the components represented in the cut list. I can select all and then ungroup, but seeing/dragging each object etc, eludes me. Any further assistance is much appreciated. Thanks DaveR!!
So the Pro Plan not Free Plan. Please correct your profile. That helps us help you.
Good deal.
Creating an exploded view is done with the Move tool. Don’t use Explode for that! I guess I would suggest that as a new user you would benefit from learning to use the basic tools before you start relying on a bunch of extensions.
Here’s a simple example of an exploded view done by moving different selections of components.
Another example done the same way.
thanks again!! agree 100% on “learning to use the basics”. Easy to get down a rabbit hole, when one gets excited to know what a thing might do vs. a thing can do. Have a wonderful day!
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I started using components for cabmaker but ran into a number of problems. The biggest problem was this.
- Create 20 cabinets (in about 15 minutes)
- Open components tray
- Sketchup would then freeze up for several minutes while making thumbnails for each and every component - around 450 unique component parts.
Users were ripping Sketchup out of memory as there was no indication that Sketchup was busy working. Unfortunately there isn’t a setting to stop Sketchup from creating thumbnails
I went to groups and the whole process such as batch editing (changing handles, door styles etc.) was virtually instant. File size dropped (no more thumbnails and Sketchup became more responsive.
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Cutmaster Optimizes cabinets in cabinet number priority. Helps small shops (garages etc) to cut fewer parts before cabinet assembly can start.
Hi all,
OpenCutList was primarily designed to deal with hand-drawn projects. In this context, the use of components makes sense.
Even if I understand that CabMaker and some other cabinet plugins prefer using groups for performance reasons, it stays a good thing to keep OpenCutList using only components. Its audience is larger than cabinet maker.
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Cabmaker and Cutmaster are designed for cabinet designers, architects and builders using saws or CNC routers.
Optimization is done in C / C++ and optimizes extremely quickly. This project has 436 parts and cutmaster optimized 36 sheets in a fraction of a second
Cutmaster also created 436 DXF files in under a second
Cutmaster works well with most CAM software such as Vectric’s Cut2DPro, VCarvePro and Aspire.
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@gkernan , will the generated .dxf files from Cutmaster work for woodwop? Does Cutmaster generate .dxf files for each part separately? Are these files for nesting (sheets)?
