Nesting: Nesting is arranging parts on a sheet or in a build volume so as many as possible fit with the least waste, before cutting or printing.
In sheet cutting, nesting software places part outlines on a standard sheet, rotating and interlocking them while keeping the spacing the process needs. In powder bed printing, 3D nesting packs parts into the build volume. Either way, a good nest puts more of the material and the machine’s run into paying parts.
What it means for the price
How a shop charges for material depends on the nest. Charging a whole sheet to one small order is unfair; charging only the part’s own area ignores the skeleton left behind. Most quotes charge each part its share of the nest at an expected sheet utilisation, or its bounding rectangle plus spacing. Nesting parts from many orders together is how shops keep utilisation high.
Example: 30 brackets fill 70% of a 2,500 × 1,250 mm sheet. Each part’s material share is the sheet cost divided by 30, not its own area times the price per square metre. The figures are an example.
Common confusions
2D nesting for sheets and 3D nesting for powder beds share a name, but the 3D measure is packing density. Nesting is also not the same as tiling identical parts in a grid, which is the simplest nest. Read nesting and material utilisation.
Go deeper: Nesting and material utilisation: how much of the sheet you really sell