Nesting + inventory · metal & wood shops

Nest tighter.
Waste less.
Cut faster.

SmartNest packs your parts tighter onto steel, aluminum, plywood or MDF, uses your drops before new sheets, and keeps track of every sheet and offcut you own and which shelf it's on. Copy from Rhino, AutoCAD or any CAD program and paste. More parts per sheet, less in the scrap bin, and no more buying stock you already have.

Get SmartNest See how it works →

41%

Less material wasted

To nest a full sheet

1-click

Sheets at origin 0,0

SHEET_01 · 5 ft × 10 ft · 10 ga steel NESTING

parts 0/26 kerf 1/16″ rot true-shape

Material saved

The problem

Wasted material is wasted money.

Hand-nesting leaves gaps, drops, and skeletons you pay for and throw away. Tighten the layout and every sheet of steel goes further.

Hand-nested

Loose. Guessed. Lossy.

Parts placed by eye, axis-aligned, with safe gaps everywhere "just in case."

58%

of the sheet ends up as scrap & skeleton

SmartNest

Tight. Rotated. Reused.

True-shape interlocking packs parts into each other's curves, offcut saved as a drop.

91%

sheet utilization, drop kept for the next job

See it

The real app, not a mockup.

These are screenshots of SmartNest 3D running a real job: four groups of parts nested onto drops and sheets, with the stock check, inventory and shop organization.

SmartNest 3D · Nest

SmartNest nesting a job onto a saved drop, with the stock check showing what to pull from each shelf

Drops first, then sheets. The job's metal is picked from inventory. SmartNest nests onto your saved drops before touching a full sheet, then tells you exactly what to pull from which shelf.

SmartNest 3D · Groups

Pasted parts organized into named groups with every piece numbered

Every piece numbered. Each paste or file becomes a named group with numbered pieces. Select pieces and regroup them in a click. Zoom in on anything.

SmartNest 3D · Inventory

Inventory screen listing sheets and drops by material, thickness and shelf

Know where everything is. Every sheet and drop by material, thickness, size and shelf position. Search "14 ga cold roll" and see the rack and the position number.

SmartNest 3D · Organize shop

Organize shop page with shelves, rules and the put-away list

Organize the shop. Set up racks, carts and bins from presets, let SmartNest assign each one a metal, and work through the put-away list.

Who it's for

Metal shop or wood shop, sheet stock costs money.

SmartNest nests any flat part onto any sheet: steel plate, aluminum, plywood, MDF. Then it keeps track of every sheet and offcut you own, so it gets used instead of forgotten.

Metal fabrication

Plasma, laser & waterjet

Brackets, gussets, base plates, signs and whole wall packages, nested tight with kerf-true spacing and cut-ready exports.

◢Spacing set from your kerf, per machine profile
◢Auto-bridging so letters and holes don't drop through the slats (Pro)
◢Drops of the same gauge and grade get used before you open a new sheet
◢Tracks hot roll, cold roll, galvanized, stainless, aluminum, by gauge and shelf

10 ga HR14 ga CR16 ga galv1/4" plate5052 alum304 SS

Woodworking

CNC routers & panel shops

Cabinet boxes, shelves, drawer parts, signs and furniture: more parts out of every 4×8 panel, and offcuts that get used again.

◢Set spacing to your bit diameter, and nest cabinet parts tight
◢Paste parts straight from Rhino, AutoCAD, SketchUp exports or any CAD
◢Offcuts are saved with their real shape and nested first on the next job
◢Tracks plywood, MDF, melamine and hardwood panels by thickness and rack

3/4" birch ply1/2" MDF3/4" melamine1/4" luanHDPEacrylic

How it works

Three clicks from parts to cut file.

No exporting, no file juggling. Copy in your CAD program, paste into SmartNest, pick the material, press Nest.

STEP 01

Paste your parts

Copy parts in Rhino, AutoCAD or any CAD program and press Ctrl+V in SmartNest, or open a DXF, DWG, STEP, 3DM, SVG, STL or OBJ. Each paste becomes a named group with every piece numbered. Box-select pieces to split them into groups.

STEP 02

Pick the material & machine

Choose plasma, laser, waterjet or router for kerf-true spacing, then pick the job's metal or wood from your inventory. SmartNest lines up your drops and sheets of it.

STEP 03

Click Nest

Everything nests across as many sheets as you need, drops first. You get a pull list, a "need X more" stock check, printable job sheets with every piece tagged, and one cut file per sheet with the drop cut included.

Built for the shop floor

Everything a real nester needs.

Tuned by fabricators, not just CAD jockeys. Every feature exists to put more good parts on fewer sheets.

True-shape interlocking

Parts rotate and nestle into each other's concave curves, not just bounding boxes on a grid.

Kerf-based spacing

Spacing set to your exact torch, beam or bit width, per machine. Parts can sit flush on the sheet edge when you want, and you choose which side packing starts from.

Drops first, then sheets

Offcuts are saved with their real shape. The next job of that material nests onto them smallest-first before touching a full sheet.

Paste from any CAD

Rhino, AutoCAD, BricsCAD and more: copy, paste, done. Exact arcs, splines and holes come through and go back out unchanged.

Groups, tags & job sheets

Wall 1, Wall 2, Cabinet A: every piece is numbered and tagged on printable job sheets and assembly maps, so you always know where a cut part goes.

Your materials, your lists

Make your own lists of materials and thicknesses (14 ga cold roll, 3/4" birch ply, whatever you stock) and pick them everywhere. No typos, no re-typing.

Cut files per sheet

Export each sheet as its own DXF, SVG or 3DM, or all in one file. Sheet outline on or off, and the cut that frees the drop is included.

Inventory that knows where everything is

Every sheet and drop by material, thickness and shelf. Search "14 ga cold roll" and see the rack. SmartNest plans your shelves and tells you what to move where.

Stock check on every job

After each nest: which drops and sheets to pull from which shelf, and how many more you need to buy. Cut it and inventory updates itself.

REMNANT_POOL · job 1 of 4 REUSING

Drop reuse

Every offcut is inventory, not garbage.

When a job leaves a usable drop, SmartNest measures it, files it under its material and thickness, and tells you which shelf it goes on. The next job of that material nests onto your smallest fitting drop first, so full sheets stay full and the scrap bin stays empty.

Drop savings · this month

Across 4 jobs run on reclaimed offcuts.

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Smallest-first matching keeps big sheets intact for big parts.

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Auto-measured drops, no tagging or re-drawing offcuts by hand.

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Shared pool so the whole shop nests from the same drop rack.

Inventory & shop organization

Know what you have, where it is, and what to buy.

Most shops have offcuts leaning against every wall and no idea what's in the rack. SmartNest tracks every full sheet and drop by material, thickness, size and shelf. It tells your crew where things go and uses what you already have before you buy more.

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Find it in seconds. Search "14 ga cold roll" or scan a tag to see which shelf it's on and how many you have.

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Drops get used. Pick the job's metal and SmartNest nests onto your drops first, then your stocked sheets, and only then counts new sheets.

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"You need 2 more." Every nest ends with a stock check: what to pull from which shelf, plus a printable pull list of what to buy.

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Auto-organize your racks. Set up shelves, sheet racks, drop carts and bins in a click. SmartNest assigns each one a metal and prints the put-away list.

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New drops place themselves. When a job is cut, its drops go into inventory already assigned to the right shelf, next to that metal.

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One inventory for the whole shop. Every seat and the website see the same stock, live. (Pro)

INVENTORY · 38 sheets · 21 drops · 9 storage spots

14 ga cold roll

📍 Where it is

14 ga Cold Roll Steel

📍 Rack A · Shelf 2: 6 sheets (48×96)📍 Drop cart: 3 drops

14 ga Cold Roll Steel

⚠ not put away: 1 drop

Stock check: 14 ga Cold Roll Steel

• Pull 3 drops from Drop cart: RMN-7F3A21, RMN-2C91B0, RMN-A41D77

• Pull 6 × 48×96 sheets from Rack A · Shelf 2 (all of them)

⚠ Need 2 more 48×96 sheets of 14 ga Cold Roll Steel

Put-away list: 3 to move

→ Rack A · Shelf 2

Drop 14 ga Cold Roll 31×22Done ✓

→ Sheet rack · Slot 3

4 sheets 3/4" Birch Ply 48×96Done ✓

Auto-bridging · Pro

Cut letters and holes that never drop through.

Cut a sign, a gusset with windows, or any closed shape and the centers want to fall through the slats, jam the table, and ruin the part. SmartNest adds tiny bridges, uncut tabs that hold every island in place until you snap it free by hand.

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Automatic island detection finds every counter and inner cutout.

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Tuned tab width & count per material and thickness, so parts hold but snap clean.

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No more fished-out drops or scrapped letters from a jammed bed.

Included in SmartNest Pro

SIGN_PLATE · 11 ga · auto-bridge BRIDGING

Tracing cut path…

tab 0.080″ · qty 3

From the shop floor

Proven on a real shop floor.

SmartNest3D is built and tested with working fabricators. Here is the shop cutting tighter with it today.

★★★★★

"SmartNest3D nests our parts tighter than we ever managed by hand, and the drop pool means we stopped tossing good steel. Auto-bridging saved us a whole job of dropped letters. It paid for itself the first week."

DimasiFabrication

Custom metal fabrication

dimasifabrication.com →

Our founding shop. Want to be the next one cutting tighter? Request a trial license →

Run your numbers

What would tighter nesting save your shop?

Put in your own numbers. The estimate counts two things: sheets you no longer buy because parts pack tighter, and drops you use instead of new stock.

Shop type

Sheets cut per month

Cost per sheet ($)

Sheet used today (%)

Sheet used with SmartNest (%)

Leftover you'd reuse as drops (%)

Estimated savings

$0 / month

$0 a year

Sheets you no longer buy: 0 / month

Material reclaimed from drops: $0 / month

SmartNest Pro is $59/month.

This is an estimate from the numbers you enter. Your results depend on your parts, sheet sizes and how you run your shop. Try it on your own jobs with the free trial.

Pricing

Pays for itself in a sheet or two.

Simple licensing. No per-seat tax on your whole shop. Cancel anytime, keep the steel you saved.

Hobbyist

$12/ month

For makers and home shops cutting the occasional project on a single machine.

◢True-shape auto-nesting
◢One machine profile (kerf spacing)
◢Sheet & drop inventory with shelves
◢Drops-first nesting + stock check
◢Paste from any CAD · per-sheet cut files
◢1 seat · 1 machine

Buy Hobbyist →

Shop

$29/ month

For a working shop running a couple of machines and keeping a drop rack.

◢Everything in Hobbyist
◢All machine profiles (plasma, laser, waterjet, router)
◢Groups, numbered tags & printable job sheets
◢Auto-organize shelves & put-away lists
◢2 seats · 2 machines

Buy Shop →

Works with the CAD you already run.

SmartNest is a standalone Windows app. Copy from your CAD program and paste, or open the file. Exact curves, arcs and holes come through unchanged.

Rhino 7 & 8Copy & paste AutoCAD & BricsCADCopy & paste DXF & DWGOpen STEPOpen SVG, STL & OBJOpen Any Windows CADPaste as vector

Using something we should support better? Tell us and we'll make it paste perfectly.

Stop feeding the scrap bin · and the dumpster

Put more parts on fewer sheets, starting with your next job.

Install SmartNest, paste your parts, and watch it pack them tighter than you could by hand, onto the drops you already have. Your material budget will notice, whether that's steel or sheet goods.