Importing Panel Estimator files from CabMaster Tutorial

In This Topic

In order to do this tutorial, we will create a test drawing in CabMaster called 'Smith'.

This tutorial assumes that your Panel Estimator is setup correctly - see Introduction.

Watch the Video which discusses setting up and using panel estimator.

Export from CabMaster

Open CabMaster and place the following cabinets i.e. Floor 1 Door 300mm, Floor 2 Door 600mm and Wall 2 Door 900mm.

Click to view Materials used for this drawing

Then export from CabMaster from the File menu i.e. Export > Companion Products > Panel Estimator

Click to Expand

This will automatically open Panel Estimator enabling you to import this job/drawing.

Import from CabMaster

If this is the first time using Panel Estimator you will need to turn on the Only select if component "IsOptimised" option. (You should only need to do this once).

File > Import Setup and enable option by ticking the check box, shown. The drop list allows you to select the field which matches the material - See Extra Notes.

Click to Expand

Step 1

From the File men in Panel Estimator, select Import from CabMaster which will open the corresponding dialog, as shown.

Select the required material(s) to import from CabMaster and click on the Ok button.

Click to Expand

Import from CabMaster dialog lists all the components used in the cabinets within our ‘Smith’ CabMaster drawing.

For this lesson, the materials that we wish to optimise are Door and Whiteboard as illustrated. Multiple materials can be selected/de-selected by clicking on them.

Step 2

The Material Setup dialog will be displayed allowing you to select the field which matches the material.

Watch the video from 17min point for a discussion on this function as it has to do with grain direction.

Dimension 1 (Dim 1) can be swapped with Dimension 2 (Dim 2) on import, if required, by simply ticking Swap Dimensions on Import checkbox.
Dimension 3 (Dim 3) is always the thickness.

Click to view Materials Manager > Optimise settings

When you click OK, the following windows will be populated i.e. Jobs by Inventory [18White tab] and Jobs [smith tab].

Click to view Panels/Boards window

Step 3

Select one of the four Algorithms from the drop list and click on the Run button to 'optimise' panels using the boards available from your inventory.

If you get a message concerning 'Inventory code ... does not exist', just click the Yes button to add.
See Adding New Inventory Items which ideally should be done prior to using the optimiser.

Click to view an example of an Inventory message

Patterns

In the Patterns window you will now see a list of the materials and all the optimised patterns for each material.

The number of patterns tells you the number of boards required. In this example...
- there are 3 patterns under 18WHITE which means that 3 sheets will be required for these cabinets.
- 1 smith is selected under Pattern 1 and the relevant board is displayed in orange.
Clicking on these numbered patterns will display a layout of the cabinet selections to be cut out of this board in the View window, shown below right.

Click to Expand

At the bottom of the View window a list of panels and offcuts, with descriptions, will be provided.

View window - List of Panels and Offcuts

The following relates to the example above i.e. 18WHITE Pattern 1. Simply scroll to the bottom of the display...

Panel Estimator handles any size board on which you may want to place panels.

Zoom In/Out using the scroll button on your mouse.
You can sort, drag, rotate and flip individual panels - see Sorting and Flipping Panels.

To Save your files to the Panel Estimator/Data folder...

select File > Save Job As... (these have a .oro extension)
- Saves a .oro file which consists of entries in the current ‘Jobs’ window. No pattern information is saved to disk.
select File > Save Pattern As... (these have a .tab extension)
- Saves pattern information only. If there are any order in the ‘Jobs’ window, these do NOT get saved.

Example of Data folder

Video

This video is a recording of a webinar which discusses setting up and using panel estimator. (31:34 mins)