MODULE / CUTTING
Furniture cutting software: cut list and sheet optimisation
You don't type the cut list — you draw the cabinet. MobiCAM takes the parts from the drawing, nests them onto chipboard and MDF sheets with the least waste, and tells you how many sheets the job takes, the waste and the sheet cost.
01 / THE CUT LIST
The list comes from the drawing, not from typing
Sides, top and bottom, shelves, back, doors and drawer parts all follow from the cabinet's size. Widen a cabinet from 60 to 80 and the cut list, the sheet layout and the price in the quote change together; you update none of them separately.
- Material, length × width × thickness, grain direction, quantity
- Per-part edge banding: which edge, how many metres
- Identical parts grouped, with a total in m²
- CSV out to Excel or your own software
02 / SHEET NESTING
Onto the sheet with the least waste
The Nesting tab lays the parts onto each material's own sheets and sums it up at the top: how many sheets, the yield, the waste and the sheet cost. Each sheet is drawn as its own card; rotated parts are marked.
- The saw kerf and the sheet's edge trim are allowed for
- A grained part is placed with its grain along the sheet's
- Each material and thickness on its own sheets
- The layout exports as CSV, and each sheet as its own DXF
03 / PANEL SAW, CNC AND OFFCUTS
What the cutting module does
| CNC router | Parts close up with no strips between them and the leftover is one clean piece; it never takes more sheets than the straight-cut layout. Each sheet gets its own .nc file: holes, grooves, pockets and contours. |
| Panel saw | With Settings ▸ Machine ▸ Where boards are cut ▸ On a panel saw, the whole layout is straight edge-to-edge cuts (guillotine). |
| Kerf and edge trim | Both are part of the layout. On a router the gap between parts is at least the cutter diameter and the edge trim at least its radius; a larger value in the project wins. |
| Grain direction | A grained part is placed with its grain along the sheet's grain; grainless parts may turn 90°. |
| Sheet stock | You enter the boards you have per material: size and quantity. When a project is sent to the machine or exported, the boards it used come off stock; a revised project takes off only the difference. |
| Offcuts | Usable offcuts from a run (at least 300 mm on each side) go into stock with Stock; later jobs use them first. A board cut from an offcut costs nothing, and the quote reflects it. |
| Labels and banding | A Code 128 barcode label for every part; for the edgebander, a feed order grouped by tape. |
04 / FREQUENTLY ASKED
About the cutting software
| Do I have to type the cut list in? | No. The list follows from the cabinets you draw; change a size and the list, the layout and the quote change together. You can take it out as CSV if you want. |
| I have no CNC, only a panel saw. Is it any use to me? | Yes. With Settings ▸ Machine ▸ Where boards are cut ▸ On a panel saw, the layout is made of straight cuts; the cut list, the layout, the edge-banding order and the labels come out just the same. |
| Can I see the waste and how many sheets it takes? | Yes. The top of the Nesting tab gives the sheet count, the yield, the waste and the sheet cost; each sheet is drawn as its own card. |
| Which files do I get? | CSV for the cut list and the layout, a DXF for each sheet, and for CNC a separate .nc file (ISO G-code) per sheet. The cut list, nesting and drawings also print as one print package. |
| Does it cost anything? | Free for 60 days during the pilot; no credit card. You take the licence from the portal. It runs on Windows, on Apple-silicon Macs and on Linux. |
NEXT