Composites · ply nesting

Fiber respected. Denser than by hand.

TessForm locks the draping angle ply by ply and nests at the tightest fit: 38 cm less roll on the lot shown below, 8% less length than a 20-minute manual placement — without a single ply off-angle. Import your DXF: cut plan in minutes. 100 founding spots: from €39/mo (excl. VAT), for life.

Composite material is expensive. So is every misplaced ply.

Hand-placing irregular plies while respecting fiber orientation takes hours, and is rarely optimal. A single misoriented ply and the whole part is a redo: the material and the hours. Every offcut goes in the bin: expired, non-recyclable, at prepreg price.

€50–100 / m²
the price of carbon prepreg. That is the rate at which your offcuts hit the bin.

One roll, three ways to fill it

Two different composite parts, pooled on the same roll to waste nothing. Three ways to place them:

Triptych: two composite parts (teal wind blade, purple bucket seat) pooled on the same roll. Manual placement in 20 minutes, the reference; free rotation 14% less roll length but fiber not respected; TessForm per-ply lock 8% less roll length, compliant and denser than manual placement.

① By hand, in 20 minutes: the reference, compliant — a laminator doesn’t try hundreds of arrangements.

② Free rotation, the generic tool: 14% less roll length than by hand, but the fiber runs every which way — unusable on a structural part.

③ TessForm locks each ply to its draping angle: compliant, and 8% less roll length than by hand.

Measured on a real batch, not a simulation.

Two composite parts pooled on the same roll (1270 mm, 5 mm spacing) — same plies in all three placements, only the method changes. The manual placement is a real timed attempt, not an estimate. And not a lucky run: the protocol was repeated across five trials, two trained operators, three shape families (flat panels, mixed batch, fairing flat patterns) — 7.4 to 14.9% less roll length every time, with the most complex plies at the top of the range. Trials with independent workshops are underway.

Test it on my own plies

Three steps, no training

1 · Import

Your plies as DXF, or a contour entered point by point. Any shape accepted — splines and polylines included.

2 · Nest

The nesting engine packs plies tight on their real contours: fiber orientation as a hard constraint, your roll width and ply spacing configurable.

3 · Export

A shop-ready PDF cut plan, or a nested DXF export for your automated cutting table — waste rate and material cost quantified.

Built for composites

Fiber orientation, locked

Set each ply angle: the optimizer will never violate your layup. A hard constraint, not a preference: an off-angle ply simply cannot be placed — nothing to double-check afterwards. Placement ② in the comparison shows what the alternative costs.

Every valid pose of a ply

A ply rotates 180° in plane without changing its fiber, and on a fabric you declare balanced, 0° and 90° are equivalent. You define which equivalences apply: TessForm tries them all.

The real contour of every ply

We nest the real shape of each ply, curves included: two curved plies interlock instead of each reserving its own space. Waste drops from 1.82 to 1.34 m² on the lot shown above.

Material cost, quantified

Every plan shows the waste rate, the roll length consumed and the material cost. You know what you save before you cut the first ply.

Zero install

In the browser, on desktop or a shop-floor tablet — and the plan prints.

Every feature described above will be available when access opens.

Simple subscription

€79 per month, excl. VAT

or €790 per year — 12 months for the price of 10

★ Founding rate: €39/mo excl. VAT for life for the first 50 sign-ups, €49 for the next 50.

  • 30-day trial, no credit card
  • Cancel anytime

Until now, fiber orientation as a hard constraint meant an enterprise suite — quote-only pricing. At €50–100 per m² of carbon prepreg, the lot shown above saves €24–48 of material and most of the 20 minutes of placement. Three lots in a month and the subscription is covered — using the cheapest prepreg. At the founding rate, two are enough.

Test it on your own plies

Priority access, on your own DXF files. And one of the 100 founding spots — from €39/mo (excl. VAT), for life.

No spam, no credit card. One-click unsubscribe.

FAQ

What input formats?

DXF, or a contour entered point by point. Any shape, curves included — not just rectangles.

What do I get for my cutting table?

A dimensioned PDF cut plan, with waste rate and material cost — and a nested DXF export (positions and rotations) for your automated cutting tables.

I already have a cutting table that nests my plies — what does this add?

If your table handles fiber orientation as a hard constraint and you already pool several jobs on the same roll, it does the job: TessForm will not replace what you have, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. In practice, many equipped shops never bought the nesting module, or use it job by job. If that is you, send us two or three DXF files: we will run the comparison on your own lot — limited to the first 20.

Do you handle fiber orientation and roll width?

Yes. Fiber orientation is a hard constraint of the optimization, ply by ply. Roll width and ply spacing are parameters of the computation.

Is early access paid?

It starts with a free 30-day trial, no credit card. Then you freely choose to subscribe — at the founding rate if you are among the first 100 sign-ups — or pay nothing.

How much does it cost?

€79/mo excl. VAT, or €790/year (12 months for the price of 10), cancel anytime. Founding rate allocated in waitlist sign-up order: €39/mo for the first 50, €49 for the next 50 (or the annual equivalent), kept as long as your subscription stays active.

When do you launch?

In active development. The waitlist is the early-access path.