Short overview of how good the nesting capabilities of various 3D slicer are.
The task is simple: placing as many of these shapes on a 200x300mm printed as possible. Manual (quick and dirty for reference): 6 pcs.
Ranking:
- Ultimaker Cura: 7 pcs.
- human (me): 6 pcs.
- Orca slicer: 5 pcs.
- PrusaSlicer & BCN3D stratos: 4 pcs. By switching (for this particular part) from the worst (Prusa) to the best (Cura) slicer the nesting performance improved by a whopping 75%!
Ultimaker Cura:
Prusa:
BCN3D Stratos (forked from an old version of Cura):
OrcaSlicer:
I think it’s not widely front-and-center because it’s kinda fiddly, especially with folks with customized printers and there are caveats that can damage the machine or ruin the print if you are not careful. Sadly, I think that some of the more ‘closed’ slicer/printer systems could support it more reliably because the dimensions of the head + arm are much better known and the tool path can be planned much more precisely.