Does anybody else use Sigmanest for creating their laser files to cut sheetmetal parts?
We use it, but we just got a 30 trial for the Solidworks interface. We would like to use the interface so we don't have to export the flat patterns out as dxf or dwg files, but I noticed a couple of things that I don't like about it. For starters, when you import a flat pattern, it always imports it upside down with no way of flipping the flat pattern within Sigmanest. I know, it shouldn't matter, but we always consider the side that faces up to be the good side. We do this because the good side is a visual side of our parts and needs to be as clean and scratch free as possible. The other problem is that we use configurations of parts, and as far as I can tell, Sigmanest doesn't recognize any configurations in parts files, only the base part. Because of these two key points, the Solidworks interface is pretty much useless to us.
It does have some other really great features. Such as, instead of importing each sheetmetal part separately, you can open an assembly and Sigmanest will search the entire assembly for any sheetmetal parts and let you setup the laser files one after another without having to go and look for each part file. It also lets imports custom properties right into all of the fields for each part. Like material, material thickness, part number, part description, etc. This is really nice, not having to re-type all this info and helps speed up the process.
If anybody else out there uses Sigmanest and the Solidworks interface, I would appreciate some help with this if you've got answer to these two problems.
Thanks, Richard