Hi, I will try to explain my problem with my limited english…
I am using OpenCutList for making cabinets etc…
I am making cabinet doors from sheet wood which has grain going in one direction. Now imagine you have like 4 doors which are next to each other and you want them to be from one sheet so the grains “connects”.
But OpenCutList of course places them randomly (or with best optimization).
Do anyone know how to “override” or customize this?
Thanks and have a great day!
Ivan
Maybe, @boris.beaulant has some ideas?
Hi @opic ,
Unfortunately, there’s no internal feature to currently achieve this.
The workaround is to create a fake big part of all parts you want to align in cutting diagram.
Hi Boris,
thank you for the reply.
I am already using this method and it works fine.
If I understand it right you are part of the team responsible for OpenCutList.
I absolutely love the plugin you did great job!! Thank you.
Do you think that in the future it may be possible to move parts in the cut list to align them? Is it technically possible?
Have a great day!
Thank you to appreciate OpenCutList, @opic 
It’s not planed to move parts in cutting diagram. But we try to find a solution to force grain continuity between part.
Hi, I’m having exactly the same issue as I need panels with continuos grain pattern and I’m not exactly sure how this workaround is applied?
I have alligned my panel components next to each other how I want them laid out and made an overall component to house this layout but OCL still seems to juggle their positions around in the cutlist.I’m not sure if what I’m doing here is in any way correct…?
Hi.How does this workaround work exactly? I’m not sure what is meant by a ‘big fake part’?
Amazingly slick and well thought out software by the way.If I was designing it myself it would be pretty much exactly how you’ve made it!I commend your no doubt hard work
Hi, could you explain to me how this workaround works? I’m a bit unsure of how to implement a ‘big fake part’,any helkp would be greatly appreciated
it means you make a big part 
ok, I’ll illustrate :
On the top, you have your “real” situation. you have 4 panels, no matter their dimensions.
as you can see, they have a continuous grain that makes them look like one giant piece. However, opencutlist doesn’t know that, so it’ll place them on the wooden boards as best as it can, not respecting the grain.
so the solution is to cheat, despite your furniture having 4 pieces, you’ll also model the front as one massive piece.
and you’ll have to manually recut it yourself.
that way, you’re sure the grain will match, since it was initially cut as one big piece and not 4.
Aha, many thanks for the response, I was kind of thinking this is what was meant.This doesn’t however help my situation as OCL doesn’t actually then provide you a cut-list for those parts, which is what I need as I want to get the veneered boards manufactured and edged.This method would only make things more complicated as the cutlist includes many cuts fro drawers etc
I’m hoping that OCL has some in future to find an easily manageble solution, maybe forcing part placement based on a ‘tag’ or item name, meaning that boards are alligned left-to-right alphabetically. 
Thankyou for your help and clear explanation 
but yeah, if you have many pieces, it will mean extra work. might be worth it since OCL takes care of the majority of the work, leaving you to deal with veneers.
Unfortunately, the good idea doesn’t appear yet 
.
Even if our cutting diagram algorithm is ready to manage “group of parts”, we have only 50% of the solution. For the moment, we have not found the good idea for the user to define their grain continuity desires.
As you can imagine, that mean that the result should find the best solution with some parts it can move and other it can’t. Two rather contradictory constraints.
And there a lot of different needs about grain continuity. And of course saw kerf can break real continuity if, for example, drawers must be aligned with doors.
And what about grain continuity on two different plane ? How to detect it ?
Or with a hole … ?
This sentence bothers me a little.
OpenCutList is developed by only 2 patio woodworkers. We created this software mainly in our free time. In this context it’s quite hard to work as a real company to offer the best solution for user that love using a professional software for free.
So, how much would you be willing to pay for this kind of feature?
Blockquote This sentence bothers me a little.
It was only meant in an enthusiastic and optimistic way, I fully realise that OCL is made by a small yet incredibly dedicated and meticulous team and hope that my optimism has not been misinterpreted as an entitled request in nature
I refer you to my earlier statement:
Amazingly slick and well thought out software by the way.If I was designing it myself it would be pretty much exactly how you’ve made it!I commend your no doubt hard work
And what about grain continuity on two different plane ? How to detect it ?
I would imagine that you would lay out your parts to fit on a sheet, as I have here, and then just somehow force OCL to just simply not attempt to reorder those parts so that the ‘cutting diagram’ remains true to the layout in Sketchup.Maybe through the use of tags or a recognisable symbol such as ‘*’ in the component name maybe?
It just seems a bit of a shame that currently I can use the cutting list output alongside the generated drawing in OCL to demonstrate the position on my board but I can’t use the actual cutting diagram which personally is the best feature of OCL
Or with a hole … ?
I would imagine that you would just fill the hole as a blank part as that would also continue the grain orientation correctly
I once again thankyou for creating such a seamless and well integrated plugin. 
