Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Glass cutting

A long time ago I worked for a small company that sold computer
systems to do layout of cutting rectangles and other parallelagram
shapes.

It was pretty neat. All the breaks had to be shear breaks that went
all the way across. If they needed smaller pieces out of a big sheet,
they cut a long cut from the big sheet than a smaller cut to get the
pane out the right size.

When they gave cutting instructions it was done manually, but had to
be done in the right order. But this was in the early 1980's.

It took into account glass gaining length on the tong long (the glass
was hung by tongs as it went through the annealing oven to make it
tempered, and it expanded about 1/8" along the edge that was vertical
as it went through the oven, they called that the 'tong long' side).

Sorry for the aside, just thought someone might like to know.

Oh yea, why the software? A very skilled glass person can get almost
90% useful glass when cutting the big sheets into windows/doors/etc.
This software was advertised to get 95% on average, but normally it
got closer to 98%. They just didn't want to over brag and get into
legal problems. I have no idea if they are in business anymore or if
similar software is in use.

... ahh, war stories