How do I stop the layout from changing each time I close and open the job file?

Answered

John Palmer

March 04, 2020 17:16 Edited

Question

We have noticed that when you save a job that you already optimized, when you open it again the optimization is different and the cutting scheme is different.

The optimisation layout keeps changing each time I save and re-open a job.

Example of this behaviour:

Here is the order that we will optimize.

Here are the results of the optimization (there are 3 layouts)

 

Layout 2

Layout 3

Lets say that now we save the job and close the application.

When we open the job again, it says that we need to re-optimize and as a result the cutting scheme is different.

And now the layout has changed. For example, the last layout now looks like this...

The problem is that we do not have a reference of what was the cutting scheme of each order, since every time we open the program it is changing.

In the end we are forced to extract reports and save them on our PC in order to keep track of each order.

Is there a way to set it so that the layout does not change when we close and re-open the job?

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• Official comment

  

  John Palmer

  March 04, 2020 17:17

  Some background about why this happens:

  To give you some background without getting too technical, there are many different optiimisation routes that MaxCut uses to decide on a ideal layout.

  To go through all of them would take forever so instead we generate a random number that "seeds" the optimisation route.

  When you close MaxCut and re-open it, it picks a new random number. If this number is different from the previous one, the layout can potentially be different.

  Benefits - it can lead to better optimisations (although not guaranteed).

  Drawbacks - every time you close a job and re-open it, you risk seeing a different layout.

  How to change this:

  You can make MaxCut not change the random number. In MaxCut go to Settings > Layout > Optimisation Settings

  

  This will show the optimisation method screen.

  

  At the bottom there is a checkbox that says "Re-optimisation changes results". If you uncheck this then your job layout will not change when you close and re-open a job.

  
• 

  Christopher

  April 11, 2024 23:20

  Hi John,
   
  four years later, testing MaxCut version 2.9.1.9, the optimization settings look different and do not offer a checkmark "Re-optimization changes results". The online help link does not work.

  I found that in some cases (but not always) the 'Optimization Seed' is shown in the job summary box on the layout page after optimizing, and clicking on the blue colored link it is offered to change the seed value. 

  Please explain under which circumstances the optimization seed can be edited and where I can find it. Also explain, if the seed number can be saved an re-loaded from the mc3 file, after it was set.

  Today I tested MaxCut with 9 panels of various sizes and quantities (finally 23 parts in total), with the goal to utilize 2 sheets of material. I loaded the same project from the mc3 file in two instances of MaxCut and played around with the layout settings to see the differences. My findings (valid for my particular project) was:
  1. the legacy engine was slightly better than the new engine in placing small parts as gap filler (used as samples of the material).
  2. the seed value did matter, which became visible when the number of results went down to 1.

  Overall it is remarkable that MaxCut found the single unique optimal solution (verified by human intelligence) in no time, which is a very good performance compared to other software I tested before. 

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