Stained Glass Cut Planner
STAINED GLASS CUT PLANNER / EDITION 02
Every piece. Every possibility.
Contour-aware nesting meets a thoughtful cutting review. Make room for your next creation.
POLYGON NESTING · CUT REVIEW · LOCAL FIRSTDrag pieces · arrows 1 mm / Shift 10 mm · R rotate · Esc exit expanded view
CUTABILITY / GEOMETRIC SCREENING
A closer look at every cut.
Select a piece to see what needs attention.
Geometric screening, not a promise of a successful cut. Material, scoring, tools, support and skill still need in-person review.
Your workshop brief
Straight-break separation candidates
LESS WASTE / MORE WONDER
The second life of glass.
Make the space between pieces the beginning of something new.
Scan the current layout to find an empty rectangular region.
Your offcut shelf
Start something small
A diamond suncatcher, a tiny leaf or a mosaic tile. Match the idea to the actual separated glass, its colour and its condition.
THE METHOD
A little craft. A lot of care.
Three distinct checks, with the assumptions left visible.
Beyond the bounding box.
Simple concave and convex polygons are tested with edge intersections, containment and minimum contour distance. Three starting orders and allowed rotations search for a smaller footprint. More tool space also prefers fewer pieces without a straight isolation route. A shelf layout remains the fallback; the result is heuristic, not globally optimal.
Know the delicate details.
Flags show re-entrant corners, tips below 35°, short edges and low area-to-perimeter slenderness. Tool access is your editable planning threshold, not a manufacturer safety limit. Minimum angle excludes concave angles.
Leave a route to the work.
A recursive search finds full horizontal or vertical split lines with a clear corridor at least as wide as your tool-access setting. Dotted lines are group separation candidates, not a complete score-and-break path. Unresolved groups need manual isolation.
STAINED GLASS CUTTING / FIELD NOTES
Measure first. Then make room.
Start with actual sheet dimensions and compensated pattern outlines. Choose grain lock before nesting. Set practical working clearance based on your tools and the glass you are using.
Inspect. Isolate. Verify.
Run the cut-review sample to explore a concave L, an acute tip and a thin strip. Select a piece, inspect its flagged vertices, then step through candidate group splits. Review the whole sequence at the workbench before cutting.
Workshop reference on progressive scoring for inside curves: Delphi Glass — Cutting Hand Rolled Glass
From the workbench
What can I import?
SVGs with millimetre width/height, a viewBox and flat rect, polygon, closed polyline or straight M/L/H/V/Z paths. Simple concave polygons are supported. Maximum 24 pieces and 80 vertices per piece. Flatten groups/transforms first. Curves, compound paths, holes and photos are rejected. A GlassNest v2 JSON file restores the exact project.
What does the cutting review prove?
It measures geometry and checks conservative straight separation corridors. It does not simulate crack propagation, residual stress, glass texture, thickness, annealing, support or operator skill. A lower-complexity label does not certify safe cutting. Deep inside curves or corners can need progressive relief cuts, grinding, redesign or specialist tools.
Why does a dense layout show more review flags?
Closely interlocked polygons can save layout footprint while leaving too little access for tools or full straight separation. Increase the gap or choose More tool space, then compare the flags. A found separation tree only divides groups; each individual outline still needs review.
Is the displayed saving a material saving?
Sheet use is the area of valid placed polygons divided by full sheet area. The comparison is the occupied bounding rectangle of the contour layout versus a shelf baseline on the same sheet. A smaller footprint does not imply the same percentage of money or glass saved. Grid search can miss tighter placements.
How do I print and store the result?
Export the measured SVG, open it in a vector editor and print at 100% without fit-to-page. Measure the 20 mm calibration line. Large sheets need tiled printing in your print software. The report records review criteria and candidate split lines; the JSON project preserves editable pieces.
Does the gap include foil or lead allowance?
No. The piece gap is working clearance between contours. Edge margin is the distance from the sheet boundary. Copper-foil or lead-came pattern allowance must be applied to your outlines beforehand. Scoring is not a saw kerf.
Made for the mindful maker.
GlassNest Studio is a planning workbench for small stained glass projects. One sheet represents one glass stock. Cut layouts do not simulate a multicolour finished artwork.
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