User manual

CHAPTER 01

What is OptimCut and what does it do?

OptimCut plans the cutting of boards for furniture production. It matches the parts you need with the boards in stock and looks for the layout with the least waste.

Instead of placing every part by hand, you describe your materials, stock and furniture once. OptimCut calculates the requirement, checks whether the boards are enough, generates the cutting diagrams and prepares the workshop documents: the cut sheet, the labels and the complete PDF.

The home page

The top bar

Quick start

1. 1
   Add your materials

   Material catalogue → Add material.

2. 2
   Record your boards

   Board stock → Add board.

3. 3
   Describe the furniture

   Furniture recipes → a category → Add furniture.

4. 4
   Optimize

   Optimize → choose the furniture → Optimise.

5. 5
   Send it to the workshop

   Check the diagrams, print the sheets and press Start cutting, save and update stock.

CHAPTER 02

Setting up your workshop

The material catalogue and the board stock are the foundation of every optimization. Fill them in once and keep them up to date as boards come in and get used.

1. 1
   Fill in the material catalogue

   Press Material catalogue, then Add material. Fill in Name (for example “White chipboard”) and, optionally, Manufacturer code (for example “H1145 ST10”). Finish with Add the material. The name must be unique; use the trade name your operator recognises. Edit a material with Edit.

2. 2
   Record the boards in stock

   Press Board stock, then Add board. Choose the material, enter Length, Width and Pieces, then press Add the board. The board appears in the Raw boards table.

3. 3
   Keep the stock up to date

   Offcuts kept after cutting appear separately under Reusable offcuts. In both tables you edit the name, material, dimensions and quantity directly, or press Delete. Stock goes down automatically when you confirm a cutting job.

CHAPTER 03

Furniture recipes and categories

A recipe stores the parts, materials, edge banding and dimensions of a piece of furniture. You describe it once; when cutting, you only choose how many units you want.

Organise furniture in categories

Categories are folders, for example “Kitchen”, “Bedroom” or “Office”. In Furniture recipes press Add category, type the name and press Create category. Then open the category to add furniture to it.

• Rename: Rename on the category card.
• Delete: Delete removes only the folder; the furniture inside is not lost but moves to Uncategorized.
• Search: the search field finds furniture across all categories at once (for example “wardrobe”).
• Move: open the recipe and choose another value in the Category field.

Create a recipe

In the chosen category press Add furniture. Choose New recipe to start from scratch or Import file for a CSV cut list exported from SketchUp / PRO100 or an OptimCut recipe in JSON format. With New recipe the Before you start window appears: if a material is missing, press Materials catalogue; otherwise press Continue.

1. 1
   Name, category and main material

   Fill in Name and the optional description, choose the Category and the Main material. The main material is suggested automatically for every new part.

2. 2
   Enter the parts

   For each part fill in the name, material, length, width and number of pieces. Add part adds a new row, and the red × at the end of a row removes it.

3. +
   Sub-assemblies (optional)

   For a drawer, a door or another group of parts press Add sub-assembly, give it a name and add its parts with Add part in the sub-assembly bar. On labels the parts appear as “Drawer · Bottom”. The × in the bar deletes the sub-assembly together with its parts.

4. 3
   Grain and edge banding

   Fixed grain keeps the part oriented along its length; Free grain allows a 90° rotation. In Edge L and Edge W choose 0, 1 or 2 banded sides, and in Edge mm the band thickness (empty = the default thickness from settings). Enter finished sizes: OptimCut calculates the cut size itself (see “Edge banding and cut sizes”, chapter 7).

5. 4
   Check and save

   Review the Material usage summary (parts, area, total edge banding), then press Save furniture. An existing recipe can be changed at any time or deleted with Delete; orders already made do not change.

When the furniture cannot be saved

• The catalogue contains no materials.
• The name or the main material is missing.
• The recipe has fewer than two parts.
• A part has no valid material, length or width.
• The quantity on a row is not a whole number between 1 and 200.
• The recipe exceeds 100 parts in total (all rows, including sub-assemblies) or 20 sub-assemblies.
• An imported formula is incomplete, contains an unknown variable or produces an impossible dimension.

CHAPTER 04

Optimizing the cutting

Optimization goes through a few short steps. Each step checks the data before moving on, so the engine only starts with an order that can actually be cut.

1. 1
   Choose what to cut

   Press Optimize. Choose Saved furniture for recipes or Parts for a list entered by hand. In saved furniture press the cards you want until Chosen for cutting appears, or Choose whole category for an entire category. The counter shows the parts chosen against your plan’s limit; Clear selection starts over. Then press Optimise.

2. 2
   Set the quantity

   Enter the number of units for each piece of furniture and press Continue. The recipe’s parts are multiplied automatically, within your plan’s part limit.

3. 3
   Check the material requirement

   The Material requirement step shows the number of parts and the net area for each material. The “recommended” value adds 30% for the saw blade, trimming and gaps where nothing else fits. Press Continue.

4. 4
   Select the stock boards

   Only boards of the right material on which at least one part fits are listed, from smallest to largest. OptimCut proposes the quantity for the requirement + 30%; you can change it on each row. Press Continue.

5. 5
   Board trimming

   At Trim the boards? choose Yes, trim, how many mm per side and whether you trim 2 or 4 sides, or No. Reusable offcuts are not trimmed again.

6. +
   Pre-milling (only for edge-banded parts)

   At Some parts have edge banding. Pre-mill? choose No or Yes, I pre-mill and how many mm the cutter removes per side (usually 0.5–1 mm). With pre-milling, every banded part is cut larger by that amount on each banded side.

7. 6
   Start the optimization

   Check the Cutting settings: method, unit, blade width, cycles and minimum reusable offcut. Leave Group identical parts ticked if you want parts of the same kind next to each other. Above the button you see the server traffic, how many users are optimizing now and the estimated time. Press Start optimisation; the top bar shows how long is left, and Stop cancels the calculation.

Cutting methods

Messages that can stop you from continuing

CHAPTER 05

Results and workshop documents

After optimization OptimCut checks the plan itself: every part is on a board, with no overlaps and nothing sticking out. Then come the diagrams, the statistics and the production documents.

Result tools

Once the result is checked, press Start cutting, save and update stock. The sheet is saved under Optimization results, the boards used are taken out of stock, and you can add the reusable offcuts back into stock. The button stays visible at the bottom of the screen while you scroll.

If a part does not appear on the diagram

The Unplaced parts message appears at the top, with the name and missing quantity. Check, in this order:

1. You did not select enough boards. The engine uses only the quantities chosen under “Stock boards”, not your whole stock.
2. The material does not match. A part is placed only on a board of exactly the same material.
3. The part is larger than the usable area. Trimming makes the board smaller and the blade uses material on every cut.
4. The grain is fixed. The part cannot be rotated by 90°, even if it would fit rotated.
5. The area is enough, the geometry is not. The gaps between parts may be too narrow for the next part.
6. The settings are too strict. Check the blade width and trimming; try the Precise method or more cycles.

The result can also warn you if a board does not fit on the machine table, if a cut is longer than the maximum cutting length, or if a strip is too narrow to hold against the blade. Resolve these warnings before production.

Saved sheets

Under Optimization results you find every confirmed sheet, with the date it was saved and the date it expires. Open the sheet reopens it for printing and Download PDF archives it. Sheets are kept for 6 months and then deleted automatically: download what you want to keep in good time.

CHAPTER 06

Quick optimization

Quick optimization is a trial calculation, separate from your company data. It is ideal for an on-the-spot estimate or a one-off order.

1. 1
   Open the module

   On the home page press Quick optimization, read what it does and press Continue.

2. 2
   Enter the boards

   Under Boards press Add board and fill in only the length, width and how many you have. No material is needed.

3. 3
   Enter the parts

   Under Parts fill in the name, length, width and pieces, as in the regular workflow.

4. 4
   Optimize and print

   Start the optimization. From the result you can use Open sheet: the full sheet, diagrams, cut sheet and labels, for printing or PDF.

• It neither uses nor changes your board stock.
• It is not linked to the material catalogue or the furniture recipes.
• The result is not saved under Optimization results: it disappears when you leave the page. The app asks for confirmation before you leave.
• It counts towards your plan’s optimizations, like any other optimization.

CHAPTER 07

Account, settings and plan

Everything about your account is in the My account menu at the top right: profile, preferences, plan, messages to the OptimCut team and signing out.

Profile and settings

Edge banding and cut sizes

On every banded edge: cut size = finished size − band thickness + pre-milling. Example: a 400 mm part with 2 mm banding on both ends is cut at 396 mm without pre-milling and at 398 mm with 1 mm pre-milling. If you already enter cut sizes, untick Subtract edge banding from the cut size.

Plans

From Plans you upgrade with Switch to Pro or manage your payment with Manage subscription. If you have a promo code, press Activate promo code: you get Pro free for the length of the code (1 or 6 months), without a card. Days and months follow Romanian time.

Contact and bug reports

From Contact & bug reports you send a message to the team: choose the category (billing / plan, bug, suggestion or other) and describe what you did, what you expected and what actually happened (at least 50 characters). The page you are on is sent automatically. The reply appears in the same window, and the account menu tells you when a new reply arrives.

Sign-in security

Tick Keep me signed in when signing in to stay connected after closing the browser; without it, the session ends with the browser. When you sign in from a new device you receive a verification code by e-mail. A forgotten password is reset from Forgot password?.

CHAPTER 08

Limits and rules

Limits protect server performance and guarantee you a fast optimization. The values below are those of the standard configuration.

Optimization rules

• One press = one optimization: an order with several materials counts once; the materials are optimized one after another.
• The 2-minute pause: after 2 optimizations started less than 2 minutes apart.
• One optimization per account: if you start another (for example from another tab), the running one stops.
• At most 10 simultaneous optimizations on the server: the 11th waits 5 minutes.
• More than 20 at once = attack: all optimizations stop and are blocked for 3 minutes for everyone.
• Furniture: at most 999 units per recipe, within your plan’s part limit.
• Validity: a started optimization stays valid for 30 minutes.
• Estimated time is an approximation: it depends on traffic and corrects itself after real optimizations.