Customizer - Layouter

A real case from PLASTON's own CAD, with your part inside it. Turning the view is a drag on the model; everything else is in the two panels - the case on the left, the part you brought on the right.

Step by step

1. Bring your part in. Your part, top right: a STEP or STL file of whatever you want to pack. It is measured by the smallest box that encloses it, the whole range is scored, and the smallest case that takes it opens with the part standing on the cavity floor. A large STEP file takes a few seconds to read.
2. Or choose the case yourself. Case, top left. A rack is one product with two drawers in it, so picking one offers a Drawer beside it.
3. Room for foam. A part is laid out 5 mm clear of the cavity walls, and the fit is scored on what is left - as the Size Finder does with the padding set there.
4. Turn the view. Drag to turn, scroll to zoom, drag with the right button to slide. The cube in the corner names the case axes L, W and H: click a face to look straight down that axis, and the house button fits the case and puts the isometric view back. Nothing stops the view at the poles - it can be rolled right over the top.
5. Turn the part. L, W and H are quarter turns about the case's own axes, and the fit is re-scored for whatever orientation is on screen. Best fit returns it to the orientation that fits best and clears any move with it.
6. Move it by hand. Select a part, press Move, and drag an arrow to slide along that one axis - a click on it steps 5 mm - or a ring to turn, snapped to 5°. Nothing is fenced in: push a part out of the cavity and the readout says so.
7. See inside. Case transparency fades the shell, Cut through sections case and part on any axis at any depth, and Lid open swings the lid assembly back on the real hinge bore. Case parts switches the lid, the base and any insert on and off, and the square beside a name recolours it.
8. Measure anything. Press Measure and click two points on the model: you get the distance between them and the gap along each axis. Turning stays live while it is armed, so you can reach round the model for the second point. Clear takes the measurements away.
9. Make a foam insert. Switch on the Foam Designer, the panel under the parts panel (beside it, when the window is too short). It puts in the biggest block that fits: measured off the case itself, 1 mm clear of its walls and anything on its floor, and 2 mm under the shut lid. The lid opens to show it, and Foam transparency lets you see into it. Pocket, Round and Finger cut add cuts; drag one across the top of the foam in the view, or set its place, size, depth, corners and turn below. Where cuts overlap the deeper one wins, so a finger cut over a pocket's edge steps down into it.
10. Follow a part. Select a part you brought in and press Pocket from part: the pocket follows its outline seen from above, with the Clearance all round, as deep as the part is tall.
11. Or a photo. Photograph the thing from above lying on a sheet of A4 or A3 and bring it in with Photo… under the parts, or by dropping it on the view. Click the sheet's four corners and say which sheet it is: the photo is straightened by them and comes in as a part at its true size, cropped round what is on it - to move and turn with Move like any part, with or without foam. What is not paper is outlined in orange over the straightened sheet, in the same window, with the settings that shape it beside the picture: Sensitivity sets how far from the paper beside it counts - darker, another colour, or printed where the paper is plain, so the light on the sheet need not be even, and a white thing on white paper is found by its print and its edge - Smoother straightens its steps, Height of the thing is how far the outline is raised, and Scale (±20%) corrects its size to the real thing. Click a thing on the sheet to keep that one alone, where the photo has more on it than was meant; Edit in the part list opens the window again. With the photo selected, Pocket from part cuts round that outline, as deep as the Height of the thing and the clearance.
12. Save it. STL for the foam in 3D, for a CNC router or a printer; SVG, DXF and PDF for the top view at 1:1, a layer and colour per depth with the depth written on it. Type sheet thicknesses into Sheets, from the top down - 50 + 100, say - and it goes out as stacked sheets instead, a file or a page each, numbered from the top; what they do not add up to is left at the bottom.

Worth knowing

• Several files can be in the case at once. The first one chooses the case; the rest are laid along its length, the row centred in the case, so none starts out inside another. Each gets a tree of its own, and a single body can be shown, picked, moved or taken away on its own.
• The readout speaks about whatever is selected, one item at a time. Packing a whole set of parts into a case is a different problem, and this does not pretend to solve it - what it gives you is every part measured, drawn to scale and placeable by hand.
• Either panel folds away with Hide panel when the model wants the room.
• Save project, at the foot of the left panel, writes the case, its settings and every part you brought - its mesh included, and where you put it - to a file. Open project puts it all back, without the geometry worker. Measurements are not kept: they are quicker taken again.
• The foam goes into the project too: its cuts, the sheets, and any photos, straightened, with where they lie.
• A pocket keeps 2 mm of foam to the block's edge, and a cut as deep as the block goes right through it. A photo is best taken square from above, in even light, on plain paper with the whole sheet in the picture.
• Reading a STEP or STL file is the one thing here that needs the geometry worker. Without it the cases still load and can be looked through; the upload is what reports a failure.
• The fit is box against box: ribs, screw domes and the dome in the lid are not collision tested yet.