Deepnest command line interface

Command line interface for Deepnest allow you to use Deepnest without the need to use the web interface.

Pre-requisites

You'll need to have Node.js v10 installed on your computer. You'll need to have working installation of Deepnest.

Installation

Install npm dependencies

npm install

Rebuild your installation and replace some files to make the tool work.

npx electron-rebuild
cp -R build/Release/ minkowski

Install yargs@10

npm install yargs@10

Usage

Scripts accepts directory and maximum iterations number as arguments. Provided directory must contain "box.svg" and "parts.svg" input files. Result deepnest.svg file will be saved in the same directory.

npx electron . --directory ./samples --iterations 10 --withbox

Options

--directory - path to the directory with files

--iterations - maximum number of iterations

--withbox - show box on exported image (hidden by default)

--exportids - export the IDs of successfully fitted parts to deepnest-parts-ids.txt in the same directory

--debugger - show main window and open developer tools

Debugging

General information

main.js is the only file you can debug as a Node.js script. If you write console.log in this file, you'll see the output in the terminal.

index.html (as well as background.html) is absolutely another story. This file is being loaded in Electron's browser and you can't debug it like a Node.js script. You should use browser's developer tools to debug it.

To debug index.html you need:

1. Show main window (find and uncomment mainWindow.show() in main.js)
2. Open developer tools (find and uncomment mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools() in main.js)
3. Add debugger statement in index.html file or it's scripts (for example, in autorun() function)

You can also use --debugger option to show main window and open developer tools automatically.

Log from 'index.html' to terminal

In order to write something from index.html to the terminal, you need to use electron.js events. In your index.html file you can send an event to the main process:

// in index.html
ipcRenderer.send("autorun-log", "new iteration");

and listen to this event in main.js:

// in main.js
ipcMain.on("autorun-log", (event, arg) => {
  console.log(arg);
});

Entry point of the console script

main.js creates invisible main window fists and invisible background window afterwards. We can start processing only once background window finished its initialisation. Electron has an event ready-to-show for this purpose:

// main.js

back.once("ready-to-show", () => {
  // ...
  // send event to `index.html` to start processing
  mainWindow.webContents.send("start-autorun", { directory, iterations });
});

Here we send notify index.html to starts processing and pass required parameters. Scripts in index.html start processing here:

// index.html
ipcRenderer.once("start-autorun", (evt, { directory, iterations }) => {
  try {
    DIRECTORY = directory;
    MAX_ITERATIONS = iterations;
    autorun();
  } catch (err) {
    ipcRenderer.send("autorun-quit", { success: false, error: err });
  }
});

Finish point of the console script

To close the app when processing is finished index.html sends event to main.js

// index.html
ipcRenderer.send("autorun-quit", { success: true });

And main.js quits application process:

// main.js
ipcMain.on("autorun-quit", function (event, payload) {
  if (payload && payload.success) {
    console.log("Success!");
  } else {
    console.error("Something went wrong!", payload && payload.error);
  }
  app.quit();
});