Bracket
- Time
- about 15 s from submission to ready
- Features
- outer profile, 4 holes, 1 slot
- Flags
- None
- Review
- None: no flags, downloaded as extracted
How it works
How Nest Ready turns a drawing into DXF geometry
You upload the customer’s drawing as a PDF, a scan or a photo. Nest Ready finds the part, extracts its outer profile and internal features, leaves the dimensions, notes and title block behind, and shows the result beside the drawing. Anything uncertain is flagged for review, and you download a DXF for your CAD/CAM or nesting software, in around 15 seconds per part on average.
No card required. Bring your own drawings.
What happens to a drawing, step by step?
Seven steps from the file your customer sent to geometry your own software can use.
Upload the drawing
Send the customer’s drawing as a PDF, JPG or PNG: up to 25 MB a file and up to 50 files in one batch.
Each page is read on its own
Nest Ready works out whether a page is a vector drawing exported from CAD, a scan, or a photo of a drawing, and handles each kind its own way.
The part is identified
It picks out which closed outlines on the sheet are parts, as opposed to borders, frames and other drawing furniture.
The geometry is extracted
On a vector page the lines and arcs are read straight from the PDF. On a scan they are traced from the pixels. A photo is squared up first.
The drawing furniture stays behind
Dimensions, annotations, text, centre lines, borders, title blocks and notes are not carried into the DXF.
You review the result
The part is shown beside the drawing with an overlay and measurements. Anything uncertain is flagged for review.
You download the DXF
Each part comes out as its own DXF, at true size in millimetres, for your CAD/CAM or nesting software. Check every DXF against the drawing before cutting.
What does Nest Ready keep, and what does it leave behind?
It extracts the part, not the page. A converter that turns every line into CAD brings the whole drawing with it; Nest Ready keeps only the geometry needed to make the part.
Kept in the DXF
- Outer part profile
- Holes, slots and cut-outs
Left behind
- Dimensions and annotations
- Borders, title blocks and notes
Check every DXF against the drawing before cutting.
How are vector PDFs, scans and photos handled differently?
A PDF is only a container. Some hold real drawing geometry; others hold a picture of a drawing. Nest Ready checks each page and takes the route that suits it.
| Source | What the file holds | How Nest Ready gets the geometry |
|---|---|---|
| Vector PDF | Lines, arcs and text stored as drawing data, usually exported from CAD. | Read directly from the PDF. Nest Ready then chooses which closed outlines are parts. |
| Scanned PDF, JPG or PNG | A picture of the drawing: pixels, with no lines to read. | Traced from the pixels. The text is read for its dimensions, and the scale comes from them. |
| Photo of a drawing | Pixels again, plus perspective and lens distortion from the camera. | Squared up using the drawing’s long straight lines and border, then traced like a scan. The sheet is assumed to lie flat. |
| Hand sketch | A sketch with its sizes written on it. | Built from the numbers written on the sketch, never traced to size. You confirm each size before the part can be accepted. |
Parts from scans, photos and sketches take more reading and more checking, so each counts as 5 parts against your allowance. A part from a vector PDF counts as one. How parts are charged.
Where does the scale come from on a scan or photo?
From the dimensions written on the drawing. You don’t enter a scale before uploading.
A scan or photo has no built-in size, so Nest Ready reads the dimensions on the drawing and works out the scale from them. A scale only stands when at least two dimension readings agree.
Every part from a scan or photo shows its stated accuracy, as a plus-or-minus figure in millimetres. A page too coarse for the drawing’s scale is refused, with the reason and what would fix it. If a part is flagged because its scale is uncertain, you can set its true width or height in review.
More on scanned drawings: scanned PDF to DXF.
What can you do in review?
Review shows the source beside the extracted part, with an overlay and measurements, and gives you a short set of fixes.
- Accept the part, or reject it with a reason.
- Close a gap where a profile doesn’t quite join.
- Remove a duplicate where the same line has been drawn twice.
- Delete a hole flagged as lying outside the profile or too small to be a real feature.
- Set the true size of a part whose scale is uncertain.
- Re-run the drawing with a note saying what needs changing.
Each fix answers the issue a part was flagged for. There’s no free-form editing and no way to draw in a missing feature: if a part needs more than these fixes, re-run it with a note or reject it. Rejected parts are left out of the download and never charged.
Review is advice, not a gate. Parts nobody has reviewed still download; when a drawing has several parts, the README in the zip marks them NEEDS REVIEW. Check every DXF against the drawing before cutting.
What’s in the DXF?
Plain R12 geometry with nothing to strip out: no text, dimensions or splines.
- DXF R12, using only LINE, ARC and CIRCLE entities.
- The outer profile on a layer called
OUTER; holes and cut-outs onINNER. - No text, dimensions or splines, and contours that join exactly.
- True size in millimetres. Drawings dimensioned in inches are converted.
See it on a real drawing
The same bracket drawing, as a vector PDF and as a scan. The scanned example will be a generated drawing, printed and scanned on an office scanner. Example drawings converted by Nest Ready: the drawing, the DXF it produced and the facts of the run. Cards marked as placeholders are still to come.
Bracket
Placeholder: real conversion coming soon What doesn’t Nest Ready do?
It produces part geometry. Everything after that stays in the software and with the people you already have.
- It doesn’t produce toolpaths, cutting parameters or machine code, and it doesn’t nest parts on a sheet.
- It doesn’t produce quotations.
- It doesn’t create flat patterns from 3D models of folded parts.
- It works from photos of drawings, not photos of physical parts.
- It refuses pages it can’t read reliably, such as a blank page, a sheet too dense to trace, or writing too small to read, and says what would fix them.
FAQ
Questions about how it works
What to know before you send in your first drawing.
How long does a conversion take?
Around 15 seconds per part, on average. It is an average, not a promise: some drawings take longer.
Do I have to review every part?
No. Anything uncertain is flagged for review, and parts from scans and photos are flagged by default. Parts nobody has reviewed still download; when a drawing has several parts, the README in the zip marks them NEEDS REVIEW. Check every DXF against the drawing before cutting.
What happens if Nest Ready can’t read a page?
It refuses the page and tells you why and what would fix it: for example, rescanning at 200 dpi or more when the writing is too small to read, or photographing the sheet from straight above with its border in the picture.
Can I upload a PDF with several pages?
Yes. Each page is read on its own, so a set can mix vector pages and scanned ones.
Can I upload a photo from my phone?
Yes, as a JPG or PNG of the drawing. HEIC photos aren’t accepted: save the photo as a JPG first. Location and camera details are stripped from the image before it is uploaded.
Where to go next
Your next job starts here.
Bring the drawing. Leave with the part.
Try 25 parts free No card required.