Launch Options. Corte 4 User's Manual

With the Launch Options you can configure the length units format, the calculation phases and optimization, the cutting technology, the reusable offcut, the label format and the number of patterns per printed page.

To configure your Launch Options, Select Launch Options from the Tools menu.

Tip: To update the template from which the launch was created, check Save in the template at the bottom of the Launch Options window before pressing OK.

The Launch Options window consists of the following pages:

Units: In this page you can define the Length Units Format in either Metric or English systems by using an specific precision. You can also make the Conversion of Existing Data after modifying the units format.

To make the conversión of existing data to the new units, first you must define a conversion scale between current (existing) and new (just defined) units and then select Convert. You always can Undo the conversion if unexpected results.

Example: To convert from inches to millimeters, use the scale 1 = 25.4.

Important: To preserve current units after a change of precision, you should realize a 1 = 1 scale conversion.

Calculation: Modify the Optimization Level to set an agreement between quality and speedy of the optimization. The calculation process could be slowed down as much as the number of different parts types (no the quantities requested) is increased. You can set until three optimization levels which will be all consecutively applied when calculating the theoretic solution.

Tip: Select Force in the Calculation Window to force passing to the next level.

If you are an advanced user of Corte already, you can take a risk to change the default configuration of the Calculation Options whether you realize that either the whole process or some particular results can be improved manually. In spite of being that a rule exception, a number of situations could be found in which, for example, one of the calculation phases (Theoretic Solution, Rounding or Completing) is not necessary. Some of such situations are listed below:

- Calculation of the theoretic solution is unnecessary.

When little material consumption is expected (1 or 2 units), you can disable both Calculate theoretic solution and Rounding... since a high probability exists that the whole theoretic multiplicity will be nullified (zero values) after rounding down.

Tip: To have an idea of how much material is needed, select Minimum Reachable Consumption from the Tools menu.

In general, optimizing with the completing phase only, although accelerates the calculation process, could lead to rather poor yields. You could be pleasantly disappointed of verifying the difference among optimizations realized with and without the calculation of the theoretic solution.

Note: When the theoretic solution is deactivated, Corte will still attempt to use the solution calculated previously, if this one is not empty. Therefore, to guarantee that the new solution will be realized by using completing variants only, you should clean the current solution first. To do that, select Reset Solution from the Tools menu.

Certain patterns must be included in the solution.

You can force the new solution to include certain patterns calculated previously or defined manually. To do that, configure the current solution, by inserting or deleting patterns, so that only the patterns you wish to keep are left. Then, enable Keep current patterns... and repeat the calculation.

See also: Editing the Solution Manually.

- The exact solution exceeds the probable integer optimum.

If the material theoretic total consumption does not round up to the real total from the integer solution, try to change the rounding criteria (minimize standard deviation or total area) and repeat calculation but now using the theoretic solution just calculated. To do that, uncheck Calculate theoretic solution.

Note: If the optimization is being realized for several materials, the above criteria doesn’t hold on the whole, although it could be separately applied to each material.

- It’s a matter of interest to prioritize usage of material trims.

The completing algorithm implicitly tends to use the materials of larger dimensions. If the launch contains several materials as reusable trims and you wish to prioritize their usage, mark Prefer usage of several materials…That would force the completing phase to select the variants with greater yields over those distributing greater number of parts.

Note: Nevertheless what pointed above, the more effective way of forcing trims usage is by limiting the availability of the virgin material, in which case not only the completing but also the theoretic solution phase would be forced to.

- The calculation slows down excessively.

The existence of parts too small in relation to material dimensions could rather slow down the theoretic solution calculation process, specially in those launches containing a big number of parts (about 40).

You can speed up the calculation process, at the price of a possible slight decrease in the yield, by activating Extend dimensions.

Since the completing algorithm first will try to use the offcut generated by the theoretic solution, you may also do the following:

1. In the Parts Sheet, deactivate the smaller parts of the launch.

2. Calculate the cutting patterns with both Theoretic Solution and Rounding activated, but Completing deactivated.

3. Activate the smaller parts and repeat calculation again but now activating the Completing phase only.

Cutting: In this page you can configure the Cut Type, the reusable Offcut and the Technological Options.

The Cut Type options define whether rectangles (sheets) or lengths (bars) are to be cut off. When bars cutting is activated, all the data introduced for the Width dimension are ignored and the optimization is realized just by combining parts lengths into material lengths.

To let the program detecting the offcut automatically, mark Enable in the Offcut frame and define the minimum reusable dimensions. The reusable offcut will be labeled in the cutting patterns and documented in the reports.