Abstract:This paper presents an effective nesting method for leather manufacturing, such as automobile interior decoration, etc. After the profiles of leather sheets and stencils are obtained, they are discretized to make the processing independent of the distinct geometry. The constraints of profiles are thoroughly considered. A heuristic bottom-left placement strategy is employed to sequentially place stencils on sheets. The optimal placement sequence and rotation are deterimined using a simulated annealing based genetic algorithm (SABGA). A natural concise encoding method is developed to satisfy the possible requirements of the leather nesting problem. Experimental results show that the proposed mehtod not only can be applied to the normal two-dimensional nesting problems, but also can be especially suited for the placement of multiple two-dimensionally irregular stencils on multiple two-dimensionally irregular sheets as well.