I am sending Open Cut List drawings to Layout so I can dimension them but when they open in Layout there are no labels on the parts. Is there a setting or sequence I am missing?
I figured it out. I couldnât figure out how to delete this post though.
Why not post the solution for others to find?
Good suggestion Dan.
I originally had a hard time describing what I wanted. I just finished a reply but not being familiar enough with how to post on this forum, I accidentally deleted the whole thing. Iâll try again.
I am making a full kitchen cabinet set and thought I would try Sketchup with Open Cut List to create detailed shop drawings on how to fabricate all the pieces. There are a lot of them. 24 sheets of plywood for just the cabinet boxes.
OCL does a great job of optimizing the placement of pieces on the plywood but it either doesnât or I canât figure out how to include the detail cuts and router channels on each piece. I solved it by creating Scenes in Sketchup, exporting them to Layout and dimensioning the details there. Itâs tedious but fortunately there are a lot duplicate parts.
I will attempt to upload two PDFâs. One of the OCL output and one of the Layout output. You can see the missing detail on the OCL output. I will include a JPG of the 3D view of just the cabinet boxes I have detailed so far. I am not sure they came through as attachments.
Example Layout Cabinet Panel Fabrication Details.pdf (22.7 KB)
Example Cabinet Cut List Output.pdf (251.2 KB)
Hello Alan,
OCL drawing feature is not designed to export SketchUp labels or dimensions.
Mainly because it redraws only parts that are selected in the parts list. All other drawing elements are ignored in this process (stay edges, construction lines, labels, dimensions, groups, etcâŚ)
Thanks for the reply Boris,
Open Cut List is excellent. It is invaluable in optimizing the use of plywood in my project.
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Dan - I figured out a way to place the OCL Cutting Diagram on Sketchup Layout.
After generating the OCL parts list, you create the Cutting Diagram, then you select Export at the top of the screen. Select DXF as the file type and save it to a local file. Open Sketchup and import the file. It comes in as a 2D component. Select Parallel Projection camera mode and select Top View. You can edit it to include cut outs, router channels, holes or whatever. Save it as a scene and export it to Layout.
In Layout (assuming all the scaling is set correctly and line weights are correct) it can be dimensioned.
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Hello Boris,
Is there a way to export the text - specifically the dimensions - when I export the Cutting Diagrams to a DXF file? I am importing them to Sketchup so I can annotate and edit them with more cutting detail then exporting them to Layout. Currently only the basic shape shown in the cutting diagram exports to DXF.
Hello @alan3,
No, in 6.x, only the part name or number can be export as text to DXF.
In the next 7.x, part identification will be customizable with for example part size.
For what purpose do you need the dimensions in the DXF export?
Boris, It took a while to answer your question. I had to get more familiar with your extension. I completed the Sketchup file and the associated Layout file to show the cutting diagrams for each piece of plywood (19 total) of my current project. I tried uploading both files here but the file size is too big. I tried to zip them but they were one of them was still too big. If you can show me how to upload both files you can look at them and see what I am trying to do. Here is a PDF of the Layout drawing I created. I havenât yet dimensioned all the cuts on page three but you can see where I am going with it.
Open Cut List Cabinet Drawing - 11-26.pdf (4.9 MB)
If I can upload the original files, you can see what I need the dimensions on. In the Layout file you can find (Page 3) the cutting diagrams for the plywood needed to build these cabinets.
To create the final Layout file I tried a couple of methods. First, I tried importing the OCL cutting diagram directly into Layout as a .DXF file and it did bring the diagrams with part designations rather then letters but it didnât bring in any dimensions. The font of the designations were not resizable and were too small to read. I couldnât figure out how to have it import the dimensions however.
I ended up importing the .DXF files into Sketchup to create a scene then importing that into Layout. The Sketchup input process for .DXF ignores text however. I read that I could do something called âexplodingâ something in the .DXF file to include text but I didnât have the time to figure out how that worked. The only other problem I found importing DXF files into Sketchup were a few missing lines on the cutting diagrams (noted on page 3 of the Layout file) which I couldnât correct other than manually draw them in either Sketchup or Layout. The import process of DXF files to Sketchup was a bit tedious since I could only import one drawing at a time. They also came in stacked on top of each other in Sketchup so they had to be distributed across the scene.
I have made many cabinets using Sketchup but I an going to try an entire kitchen set. I have a friend with a CNC shop but he also has trouble integrating the various programs required to load data into the CNC system. He said it would be too complicated to use the Sketchup output to cut the plywood for me.
So the answer to your question is that I need detailed dimensions on all 18 sheets of plywood so I can cut them in my shop. I am pretty sure I am missing something that would make this process easier but I am not a programmer with the depth of software background you have.
If you can instruct me on how to upload the Sketchup and Layout files, feel free to look at them correct my process, I have invested a lot of time applying it to my uses and if there is a faster way I would like to use it.
Thanks for your time considering this.
Alan Gray
Ok, so why using Layout for that ? You can directly print cutting diagram to paper or to PDF from OpenCutList. For printing to PDF, you have to choose a PDF printer.
And you will have this kind of PDF, with all dimensions.
Cutting Diagram.pdf (346,0 Ko)
Exporting to DXF is not designed to be human readable. But to be imported in a CNC software.
Maybe you can try to remove unused Materials to reduce the file size.
Use DropBox or WeTransfer or similar file sharing services. Post a link here.
I tried that but the PDF doesnât give enough dimension information to fabricate the parts in some cases. See attached
Open Cut List Cabinet Drawing - 11-26.pdf Dimension Details.pdf (1.3 MB)
Did I do that right?
Itâs a quite curious solution to mix cutting diagram (that should certainly be cut with panel saw). To high detailed part informations.
- Cutting diagrams are design to be efficient to cut rectangles manually with panel saw.
- Cutting diagrams export to DXF are designed to be read by CNC software directly.
Else, export some individual part to Layout to mention their special curves, etc âŚ
Yes it is a curious solution. The OCL is extremely helpful in optimizing plywood layout for parts of the cabinet, particularly with 18 sheets of prefinished birch plywood at $100 a piece. I see no way around adding dimension detail directly into Layout to get the level of detail one would need to cut parts for a detailed project that werenât straight lines. In this case There are channels at 1/4" router depth to mate with edges of other parts as well as radii to cut.
I wanted to make sure I wasnât missing any features in OCL that would help add these details. I think I would have to look more deeply into DXF files or some other type of file that could generate the drawings I need to fabricate the parts.
In the past I have just created these details in Sketchup and exported parts directly to JPG files, skipping Layout all together. It works fine but what you have provided is invaluable in optimizing the plywood layout.
Else, some part contains reversed faces. So OpenCutList 2D projection may be altered by these bad geometry.
Makes sense. I routinely run Solid Inspector on parts but missed this one.