CutList Bridge 4 for SketchUp & CutList Plus fx

SketchUp is woodworker’s chosen tool for creating shop drawings; CutList Plus fx by Bridgewood Design is the leading tool for generating optimized sheet layouts and materials lists. These two industry leading tools don’t natively communicate. That became history with the introduction of CutList Bridge. Now CutList Bridge 4 is even more powerful and rich with new features and is ready for even better things to come.

What is CutList Bridge?

CutList Bridge is a SketchUp Ruby extension. It extends the attributes of components to include such things as the material type used in its milling, the species or material name, re-sized dimensions, shop method tags, the sub-assembly to which it belongs and much more. These attributes are attached to the component and stored in the model file. The user can export these attribute to either: a .cwx file, which can be opened in CutList Plus fx version 12.3 or higher; or to a comma separated value file (.csv aka CSV) and subsequently imported to Microsoft Excel, Open/Office Calc or any spread sheet application that supports CSV importing. Either of these methods will produce a cut list but CutList Plus fx will also produce a materials list, optimized cutting diagrams and project costing.

A very important feature of CutList Bridge is that it stores all components’ material and milling attributes in the SketchUp model file. The user need keep only one file of a design and doesn’t have to worry about synchronizing other files when design changes are made. The CWX, CSV, CutList Plus fx, Excel or OpenOffice Calc files can all be reproduced in about four mouse clicks.

What’s New in CutList Bridge 4?

CutList Bridge 3 added four new fields to the cut list .csv file: Tags, Fin T, Fin W and Fin L. However, they were only available for import to Excel and OpenOffice Calc; they could not be imported to CutList Plus fx. This limitation is eliminated in version 4.0, a major release with new functionality. Some of the new functionality was added to support CabWriter, a future new extension that will add to the SketchUp/CutList Bridge/CutList Plus design process. Other functionality was added to generally improve the extension for all woodworking projects. Here is a list of the new functionality and fixes:

1. A Legacy Mode checkbox has been added to the Extended Entity Info dialog box Setup tab. If you do not have either a Gold or Platinum CutList Plus fx license of revision 12.3 or higher you should check Legacy Mode. In Legacy Mode you will not be able to export the Tags, Fin T, Fin W and Fin L columns. Legacy Mode is unchecked when CutList Bridge 4.0 is installed.

2. When using the File/Export to CutList Plus fx command a file is saved in the same folder (place) as the SketchUp model file (.skp), with the same name as the model. The file extension will be .cwx if Legacy Mode in not checked. If Legacy Mode is checked the file extension will be .csv.

3. The Tags, Fin T, Fin W and Fin L columns are now included in a File/Export to CutList Plus fx operation. In CutList Bridge 4 the command File/Export to CutList Plus fx now produces a file with the same name as the SketchUp model file but with the extension .cwx (a.k.a CWX) . Users of CutList Plus fx version 12.3 or higher can now open this file with the command File/Open. The fields are automatically mapped so the user no longer need manually map them with the Parts Import Wizard. In addition, upon installation of CutList Plus fx 12.3, the CWX extension is associated with CutList Plus fx, so the user can simply double click on a CWX file and CutList Plus fx is opened to it.

4. Fixed an issue with Add material when the material name contained the inch unit mark ("), which caused weird behavior with the list drop down boxes.

5. Some users have experienced problems with materials.csv files that contain Euros currency. This problem is solved in CutList Plus fx version 12.3.

The attached images show the new Extended Entity Info Attributes and Setup tab and a sample cut list produced with CutList Bridge 4 and CutList Plus fx version 12.3. The video below is a ten minute introductory of CutList Bridge 4 and CutList Plus fx. You can also view it on YouTube in a larger format.