Priority worked like a rank (lower first) with a default of 0, and the
Edit Drawing form stopped at 0, so moving one part ahead of the rest
meant renumbering every other drawing. Higher-first lets a user raise a
single part to 1 and leave everything else at the default.
Every engine, filler and candidate comparer now serves the highest tier
first. Stored values keep their order:
- .nest files add `nestPriority` and keep writing the negated value under
`priority`, so older readers nest in the same order; files without
`nestPriority` are negated on read. Drawing packages strip both, so
package hashes are unchanged.
- Library settings send both keys the same way for older clients.
- Server schema v18 negates stored drawing priorities (an older server
refuses the upgraded database).
- Job documents move to version 2; version 1 jobs are converted, and an
older worker refuses version 2 instead of reversing the order.
The Edit Drawing form now accepts negative priorities and says higher
numbers nest first.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
After its six variants and tail re-plan, Irregular decodes the job again
with each type of three or more copies packed as one group, in a searched
order, holding back up to four copies per group that would start a ragged
row and filling them into the gaps afterward. When everything fits, the
best candidates are re-packed in a strip ending just short of the front.
The pass runs after the ungrouped search, which is unchanged, and replaces
its result only by beating it. The help tutorial's parts now end at 34.9"
instead of 38.1" on 60 x 120.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Compare cutout proposals, frame angles and bundles by insert outline area,
and add bounded largest-first packer candidates so big parts get the first
move in an empty hole. On the real job the four frames go from 54-70% to
77-81% filled.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Under a time limit, Irregular often finished in about a second and left
the rest unused: on the converted Nestbolt b-jakobs1 job it used five
sheets where four fit.
NestJobOptions.SearchUntilCancelled asks an engine to keep searching
after its normal search until the token is cancelled.
DeadlineNestingEngine sets it. Irregular then re-runs its six variants
with seeded per-type weights on its placement rule (seeds 1, 2, 3, ...,
each weight within e^+-0.4), reports each plan that beats its best,
then re-plans that plan's tail and reports any gain. It skips this when
the token cannot be cancelled, nobody listens for progress, nothing is
placeable, or the job has one part type, so unlimited solves are
unchanged.
Default now runs Irregular last (Rectangles, Circles, Irregular) so
Circles still runs, and chooses only after every candidate has run, in
tie-break order, so the run order never changes the choice. Unlimited
choices match the old run order {Rectangles, Irregular, Circles} except
when three candidates are near-tied within the 1e-9 comparison
tolerance without being transitively ordered (only on all-round jobs,
where Circles bids).
b-jakobs1 on one CPU, 10 s limit: 5 sheets (4.500) -> 4 (3.751).
Add PackBoundary: a closed outline with obstacles, bound to one
NoFitCache, whose per-orientation inner-fit polygon (the clearance
footprint inside the outline eroded by the other half clearance) is
computed once and shared. FrontierPacker takes an optional boundary and
seeds each region from that inner fit, drops orientations with no fit
and subtracts obstacle no-fit polygons like clamp ones; without a
boundary it is unchanged, so rectangular stock layouts are identical.
CutoutLatticeFill.InnerFit now calls the shared kernel with the same
Clipper operations, so lattice results are unchanged. The engine's
strategy variants are internal so a cutout proposal can reuse them.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The frontier packer reports its placements after each choice; the engine
turns them into preview parts at most four times a second and sends them as
NestProgress.BestParts with the stock work area, which desktop Auto Nest
already draws on the plate view. Reporting only reads finished placements,
so layouts are unchanged with or without a progress sink.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Moves the two production plug-in engines into OpenNest.Engine under names
that describe the jobs they suit:
- Rectangles: plain and near-rectangular plates, maximal-rectangles box
packing (was the RectanglesNestingEngine plug-in)
- Irregular: irregular profiles, no-fit-polygon frontier packing (was the
Opus55NestingEngine plug-in)
Their tests and the shared engine contract/layout test kit move into
OpenNest.Engine.Tests/NestingEngines.
The registry maps the old plug-in names to the new engines, so saved desktop
selections, scripts and API requests keep working, and a leftover plug-in DLL
under an old name cannot shadow its replacement. Desktop startup passes the
registry's lookup when restoring the saved Auto Nest engine.