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Known Participant
September 27, 2011
Answered

Auto nesting objects

  • September 27, 2011
  • 11 replies
  • 62258 views

Is there some way (script / plugin?) to auto nest objects on page?

In other words, to place all objects as tight as possible to eachother.

    Correct answer Pavel Mishakov

    Hi.

    Sorry, but there will be no Mac version.... - only windows.

    Price will be not high ....


    Now for Illustrator for MAC os
    AINesting - Functions > Nesting plugin for Adobe Illustrator for MAC

    11 replies

    New Participant
    October 29, 2025

    Try Arrange Master plugin. It supports a variety of object placement methods: grid, knolling, greedy algorithm, and even true-shape nesting. It's a paid plugin, but there's a demo available.

    New Participant
    June 12, 2023

    Highly recommended this plugin for Adobe Illustrator
    https://ainest-pro.com/en/

    Participating Frequently
    May 24, 2024

    Looks cool, but for $998/year I have to ask. Did you write this? 

    Seems a little expensive to me.

    New Participant
    July 18, 2024

    The plug-in is now availalbe for low budgets : 3 months subscription plan 
    https://ainest-pro.com/en/

     

    New Participant
    December 9, 2018

      (www.Deepnest.io ) works for windows and Mac a free nesting program works awesome trueshape and block nesting

    davelnewton
    New Participant
    June 18, 2019

    It *is* quite cool (as is the standalone version), but it doesn't respect grouping, which makes is much, much less useful when laying out objects that have "internal" features (e.g., cutouts). Going back in and manually lining things up really isn't a viable option for anything other than very simple designs unless I MechTurk/etc. it, which I cannot do.

    New Participant
    July 2, 2022

    have you tried making a compound shape in stead of groups. use the shortcut (CTRL+8) on a numpad

    New Participant
    January 27, 2018
    Participating Frequently
    August 8, 2013

    Looks like this is what you need :

    http://illustrator.e-cut.ru/

    It has true shape and rectangle nesting feature...

    dmtetardAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 8, 2013

    Hi Pavel, i notice you are the programmer of this software.

    It looks promising, but unfortunately i can't test it since there seems to be no mac version (yet?).

    I'm also curious about what the pricing will be.

    Participating Frequently
    August 8, 2013

    Hi.

    Sorry, but there will be no Mac version.... - only windows.

    Price will be not high ....

    JETalmage
    Inspiring
    October 2, 2011

    A collision detection method would be a welcomed addition to the AI Javascript model. It would merely serve as a "poor man's substitute" for problems like that described, but would also be very useful for many practical things involving scripted selections.

    JET

    Doug.S
    Inspiring
    October 1, 2011

    There are CAD program plug-in/add-on tools to yield what you want...used in CAD to make patterns with least waste of cutout materials....may be expensive in total.

    dmtetardAuthor
    Known Participant
    September 28, 2011

    Ok i see.

    I don't really need this function, but it would come in handy every now and then. I'll stick with manual nesting then as it's not worth it to have a custom build script for this.

    Thanks for the help!

    September 28, 2011

    There are software programs that do exactly that, and many thesis written about how to approach non-rectangluar bin packing algorithms.  Many use some form of genetic algorithms and are not trivial to write.  I would not want to tackle something like that in a scripting language.

    I am curious though.  I work for a rip software company and we have an autonesting feature.  Because we print images, and images are rectangles, we've never had the need to write the algorithm that you're in need of.  What is your rip software ripping, if not rectangular images?

    dmtetardAuthor
    Known Participant
    October 3, 2011

    @Meate

    Our rip software (Wasatch Softrip) uses rectangles too. In most cases this is good enough (and allow easy cutting), but some cases where cutting isn't needed, tighter fitting would be helpful if available. See simple example in attachment.

    But like i said, i was just checking if some script existed already. If not, it's not worth writing one for the rare occasions it would be helpful.

    dmtetardAuthor
    Known Participant
    September 27, 2011

    I'm affraid i didn't explain it very well.

    See the following image what i mean.

    Every object is put as close as possible to eachother to save media space.

    The image is an example for technical drawings, but my goal is use it for our large format printer.

    Our rip software that controls the printer does have an autonest feature, but it can only use the bounding box instead of the actual dimensions of the object.

    http://www.autonest.de/images/Anest-Layout-1.jpg

    Grant H
    Inspiring
    September 27, 2011

    i'm sure there is no standard way in Illy: But it may be scriptable!

    Start a new discussion: Objects to fit gapless script (eg)

    or try on the scripting forum

    G

    Grant H
    Inspiring
    September 27, 2011

    best u can do is select all and distribute spacing to key object ammount 0.

    G