Metal fabrications, woodworking shops and construction companies cut linear material like beams, pipes and bars on a regular basis using different measurement units like decimals (1.34) and fractions (2/3).
When using a fractional format, it could be beneficial to round stock and part lengths toward "standard fractions" used mostly in the Imperial System. These are 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64.
After several months of developing and testing, Optimalon Software has released version 8.2 of its optimization add-in 1DCutX for Microsoft Excel, which provides an option to switch from an exact fraction to standard and back.
Should the user decided to calculate optimization with the standard fractions, 1DCutX would convert all sizes and generate worksheet reports using the standard fractions. For example, the length of a part of 1' 2/3" (one foot and 2/3 inch) will be converted to the nearest standard value of 1' 5/8".
Activation of this option does not produce an exact cutting plan. Therefore it's disabled by default for new projects. To enable this new feature, go to the main menu, and click on the fifth tab called "Options." Then turn it on/off via the "Use Standard Fraction" check box.
The new release also brought some major improvements in reading fraction values from Excel worksheets. Excel users know a value in a cell of "1 2/3" is presented internally by a decimal value of 1.66666666666667 that is useless for a human operator. Optimalon Software recognized that problem from user feedback.
The new release of 1DCutX got a new smart algorithm to recognize if a value should be presented in decimal or fraction format during the calculation.
Since its first release in 2010, 1DCutX is still the only unique cutting optimization solution that is fully integrated into Microsoft Excel, working seamlessly from within to support multiple stock lengths, re-using of waste parts, angle cuts (different from 90 degrees) and many other useful options.
With only one payment of $97 for a lifetime, users of 1DCutX reported monthly savings in materials alone, ranging from $200 to $1500. The software pays for itself in less than a month and does not required any maintenance or support fees.
A free trial version of 1DCutX is available on Optimalon's website:
https://www.optimalon.com/length_cutting_excel.htm