ENGINEERING STUDY / NESTINGJS—02
General-Purpose 2D DXF Nesting Application
A local desktop nesting application and source-level Sparrow/Jagua integration effort for arbitrary parts and finite or irregular stock.
← All projects
AutomationmacroEngineering workflow
SolidWorks Waterjet Nesting Macro
A legacy SolidWorks VBA workflow that groups assembly parts, places them in generated nesting assemblies, and exports drawing-view DXF output.
Read code & workflow ↗
Explore the code, workflow and required setup.
MY FOCUSBuilt part collection, thickness grouping, selection UI, coordinate placement, view selection, and output reporting.
ENGINEERING VALUE
Represents an earlier CAD-native nesting approach that later informed broader standalone nesting tools.
ENGINEERING STUDY / NESTINGJS—02
Engineering concept illustration.
01 / THE PROBLEM
The engineering challenge.
An operator-focused workflow was needed to collect repeated assembly parts and prepare grouped waterjet layouts.
02 / CONSTRAINTS
What the solution must consider.
- Thickness groups, repeated-part quantities, placement coordinates and projected-view selection must remain consistent through DXF export.
03 / ENGINEERING APPROACH
Reasoning before geometry.
01
Engineering method
Collect and group components before placement, then generate drawing views and retain the largest projected area for export.
02
Workflow features
Distinct part collection; Thickness grouping; Selection form; Nesting assembly generation; Projected-view selection; DXF and quantity report output.
04 / DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION
Connecting intent to execution.
The VBA workflow collects parts, groups thicknesses, generates nesting assemblies and chooses projected drawing views for DXF output.
- Distinct part collection
- Thickness grouping
- Selection form
- Nesting assembly generation
- Projected-view selection
- DXF and quantity report output
05 / VALIDATION
The checks behind the design.
Engineering workflow
The workflow needs consistent module and UserForm revisions, portable template paths and representative assembly export checks before deployment.
06 / OUTCOME
The value of the work.
Represents an earlier CAD-native nesting approach that later informed broader standalone nesting tools.
THE ENGINEERING PRINCIPLE
Automate the workflow, including its failure cases.
Reliable engineering automation needs input checks, predictable output, clear diagnostics and a way to verify that quantities and references were preserved. Saving clicks alone is not sufficient evidence of correctness.
A question for a technical conversation
What would you test when the input is incomplete, duplicated or outside the tool’s supported scope?
LET’S BUILD SOMETHING THAT WORKS
Good design belongs
on the shop floor.
Considering a role in mechanical design, manufacturing methods,
fixture design, or estimation? Let’s connect.