CorteOptimo.com announcement
DATE: May 2012
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Warning: This is a beta copy released with the aim of testing the product. Everything said in this document is subject to change until published the official documentation with the final version.
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In this document:
1. Introducing the new CORTEOPTIMO SUITE
2. Common facilities to applications of the suite
3. Working with groups in CORTE v 6.0 Beta
4. Basic concepts for working with UBICA v 1.0 Beta
5. Interrelationship between CORTE and UBICA
6. Somewhat of art with UBICA
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1. INTRODUCING THE NEW CORTEOPTIMO SUITE
CORTEOPTIMO introduces its new CUTTING OPTIMIZATION PROGRAMS SUITE including the following applications:
- CORTE version 6.00
The new version of our traditional program improved with the common facilities below, the definition of optimization groups and the incorporation of complex shapes parts into the calculation of the cutting patterns.
- UBICA version 1.0.0
A program for calculating complex shapes minimum distance non-overlapped placements.
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2. COMMON FACILITIES TO APPLICATIONS OF THE SUITE
Both applications share the following facilities:
- New Report Editor
Module for creating fully customized reports, with full access to all data introduced by user or generated by the calculation engine and the possibility of calculating new fields and conditioning generation by means of Prolan programming.
- Excel XLS format export of all program outputs, included the graphics of the calculated solutions.
- AutoCAD DXF format export of the graphics of the calculated solutions.
- New programming specification PROLAN.
Prolan, acronym of Programming Launches, is a new minimal functional language, inspired in LISP, which is designed with the aim of extending CORTEOPTIMO applications functionality by:
1. Batch tasks programming.
2. Importation of other data formats contained in text files.
3. Generation of new text outputs as can be the CNC codes.
4. Full access to all the information contained in cutting objects with the possibility of creating them automatically or parametrically.
5. Adjusting and/or modification of the calculated solutions.
Prolan is an interpreted language with implementations in both spanish and english.
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3. WORKING WITH GROUPS IN CORTE 6
CORTE 6 introduces the concept of OPTIMIZATION GROUP, a new data category designed to condition parts distribution in cutting pattern to the fulfillment of certain common or compatible properties by both parts and materials.
A group expresses a property, characteristic or condition of any kind (physical, technological, organizational, etc) that both parts and materials must fulfill in order that they can be combined together in the cutting patterns.
The very definition of a group defines the existence of a new category of formats for optimization, which will contain the parts and materials assigned to that group.
The property characterizing a group can be of elemental (indivisible) type or composed by the logical combination of other properties associated to groups defined previously. This facility is implemented by the mechanism of GROUPS INHERITANCE.
A group can inherit from other groups by intersection or union operations. Intersection expresses fulfillment of all inherited properties in unison, while union expresses fulfillment of at least one of the inherited properties.
Inheritance between groups can be nested, that is, a group inherits from several groups and these in turn from other groups, and so forth until reaching to a primary elemental group.
When the inheritance of a group resolves completely, its compound property or characteristic remains expressed by a FORMULA in which union operations appears represented with the plus sign (+) and intersection operations with the multiplication sign (*).
The set of intersected groups is called CONJUNCTION and the set of united groups is called DISJUNCTION.
For the distributive law of set operations, every formula of a group can be expressed as a disjunction of conjunctions.
A group A is said to be compatible with other group B if both are the same, at least one is the empty set (not assigned) or there exists a conjunction in A that is contained (non-empty intersection) in one of the conjunctions of B, that is, B contains at least one of the sets of properties of A that must be fulfilled in unison.
The CORTE 6 calculation engine will associate parts to materials if the groups of the firsts are compatible with the groups of the seconds. Note that for the very definition of compatibility, formats having no groups assigned are always compatible with any other format.
The state of activation of a group is automatically propagated to all of its descendants (disabling all conjunctions in which a deactivated group appears) and also to all assigned formats.
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4. BASIC CONCEPTS FOR WORKING WITH UBICA
1. The fundamental objects of UBICA are the SHAPES.
2. A SHAPE is a flat, in general multi-connected figure, formed by one or several closed contours of adjacent lines and/or arcs.
3. The topological type of the contours (Interior, Exterior, Emptied) defines the existence of filled zones or holes in the shapes and the treatment given to these areas during placement formation.
4. A contour is defined in relative coordinates and takes effect after inserted at a reference point (ConRef) which can be of either simple or matrix type. Each reference point defines a simple or multiple copy of the contour.
5. The contours can be simple or composite (with intersecting segments).
6. Associated to each designed shape there exists a PLACEMENT FIGURE which is generated automatically.
7. The placement figure approximates the designed shape linearly and also rectifies its composite contours by generating filled areas or holes according to both topological type and orientation of intersecting loops of the contours.
8. The objects optimal placement problem belongs to the well known NP-Complete class for which nor one has found neither showed non-existence of algorithms that produce optimum solutions in a realizable time in practice.
9. The calculation heuristic of UBICA is basically oriented to search for a good pattern of figures that repeats itself at rectangular increments (REPETITION PATTERN) and is pretty effective when placement is realized for a single shape.
10. The calculation of placement is realized in two phases:
a) PUZZLE PHASE
For each designed shape a block of multiple parts is placed. The length of this block is the Repetition property of the shape multiplied by the ShapesMultiplicity parameter of the puzzle phase.
A shape with Repetition zeroed is considered as a REFILL and it is used at the end of the calculation to refill free spaces that may be left in the placed area.
In this phase, a coefficient to form permanent couples of well-fitted figures is applied.
The maximum dimensions desired for the puzzle can coincide or not with those of the placement area.
b) REPETITIVE PHASE
The figure of the puzzle is repeated throughout placement area according to two strategies: FRACTAL and EXHAUSTIVE.
Both phases apply one or several PLACEMENT CRITERIA to decide the placement POLES (figure location points). At a pole, the figure can appear without any rotation or rotated a notable angle (multiple of 90 degrees).
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5. INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORTE AND UBICA
1. The UBICA shapes can be incrusted as parts in CORTE launches.
2. The effect of calculation in launches with complex shapes is the determination of semi-product optimal sizes for placement repetition patterns.
3. Handling of parts quantity
In the spirit of UBICA, unlike CORTE where parts quantity is a parameter predetermined by the user, it is placing parts as many as possible into the placement area. Moreover, placements can contain not only one but several shape types. For both reasons, controlling the total quantity of placed parts is somewhat more complicated in UBICA and will only be possible for the Puzzle phase of the calculation in the way already explained.
For parts quantity makes sense in CORTE launches when dealing with complex shapes, the following parameters are associated to placements:
- Minimum Common Quantity (MCQ).
Is the sum, for each shape type, of the total of poles in the placement repetition pattern divided by the greatest common divisor of these totals taken separately.
Note that this parameter always equals to 1 when a single shape is placed, independently of its repetition, or is less than or equal to the sum of the original repetitions of the shapes if the puzzle could be entirely built, since the greatest common divisor mentioned above is, at most, the ShapesMultiplicity parameter of the Puzzle phase.
- Common Quantity Factor (CQF)
Is the multiplicity of MCQ in the placement repetition pattern, that is, the total quantity of poles in this pattern divide by MCQ.
With these parameters defined like that, the total quantity of parts in any placement will always be a multiple of the product MCQ*CQF, independently of the multiplicity of the repetition pattern, which is precisely what CORTE calculation engine needs to distribute placements in semi-products of variable dimensions.
Since CORTE assumes MCQ as the unit of quantity, the parts quantity is always adjusted to the first multiple of CQF that is equal to or greater than the value introduced by the user. Thus, the obtained part real must be applied to each shape separately according to its contribution to MCQ, which always will be proportional to the original repetition of the shape.
Note: Handling of quantities is applied to fixed shapes only and not to refill shapes.
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6. SOMEWHAT OF ART WITH UBICA
The fact of placing shapes guaranteeing both non-overlapping and minimum distance between them, besides the tendency to generate random patterns of figures that repeats themselves, makes that many of the placements generated with UBICA have an intrinsic harmony that becomes them pleasant to view.
Once dominated the strategies and criteria of calculation, you can use UBICA to generate designs compounded by multiple flat figures that repeats themselves forming harmonious patterns. Consult the examples supplied with the installation.
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