Planning a load, and packing it by hand

Set up the load

Three panels, in the order you fill them: the container, the items, and how to pack them. Everything is in the units you pick at the top — set those first and every field below follows.

1. Pick your units

   Length unit and Weight unit sit at the top of the setup panel: mm, cm, m, in or ft, and g, kg, tonnes, lbs or oz. Every measurement on the page — the container, the items, the rulers in the 3D view, the printed report — is read and shown in these.

2. Choose a container, truck or pallet

   Choose the load-space type, then a preset to fill in its dimensions and payload. Container presets include 20′, 40′ and 45′ sizes; truck presets include European curtain-siders and US trailers; pallet presets include EUR EPAL1 and half pallets. Choose Custom to enter your own measurements.

   Container and truck measurements are their usable inside space. Max weight is the cargo payload. For pallets, cargo height is measured above the deck and the cargo limit excludes the empty pallet. Enter deck height and empty pallet weight separately. Leave space at the edges keeps a gap for lashing, dunnage or access.

3. Get the items in

   Three ways, and they do the same thing:

   • Add — one row at a time, typed into the grid.
   • Paste rows — paste straight from a spreadsheet, in the order name, quantity, length, width, height, weight.
   • Template, then Excel — download the sheet, fill it in, upload it. It replaces the grid with the sheet's rows, container included.

   Each row wants a name, a quantity, its three measurements and the weight of one piece. The packer is free to turn a box, so which measurement you call length does not matter. Leave weight at 0 if you are not checking weight. Click the colour swatch to change how that item reads in the 3D view.

4. Say how to pack it

   • Choose One container to check a single space, or As many as needed to repeat its size. Choose Available counts to enter the number you have, then Add another size for a mixed fleet — for example, two 40′ containers and one 20′. These are filled in the order listed. Unused containers are optional, and cargo that exceeds the available stock remains in the leftovers. The same choices apply to trucks and pallets.
   • Load order — Back to front fills along the length first, leaving free length at the doors. Bottom to top fills the height first, leaving headroom. Auto chooses by the shape of the container.
   • Quantity — Use quantities packs the numbers you entered. Fill the load space works out how many fit and needs exactly one item type. Available counts always uses the quantities entered.

5. Calculate

   The plan appears in the result panel and on the canvas together. For palletized shipping, first calculate a pallet plan that seats all cartons. In its saved, unlocked result, choose Load pallets into containers. Each loaded pallet becomes an upright, unstacked item with its actual cargo height plus deck height, and cargo weight plus empty pallet weight. Choose the shipment's container sizes and available counts, then Calculate again. These are two calculations; the saved carton layouts remain linked from the shipment.

Describe it, at the top of the panel, takes the load in plain words instead — say what you are shipping and in what, and it fills the grid for you. Everything it produces is an ordinary setup you can correct by hand before calculating again.

Per-item rules

The chips under each row are where a plan stops being geometry and starts matching how the cargo actually behaves. They are worth the minute they cost.

• StackableOn, other items may rest on this one. Off, nothing may go on top — though it can still sit on top of others.
• This way upNever tilted or laid on its side. It still stacks to the full height of the container; this is about orientation, not position.
• Keep at bottomStays on the container floor with nothing under it. What heavy items usually want.
• PriorityLoaded first when not everything fits — higher numbers go in earlier. 50 is the default.

Under Details there are three optional ceilings, each blank for no limit. Layers it can carry counts levels that may sit on top, not boxes — several cartons side by side on this one are still a single layer, so 1 caps how high the stack goes, not how many things touch it. Weight it can carry is the heaviest single box allowed on top, not the whole stack. Clearance around it keeps a gap free on every side. These three are part of Business; the Stackable chip above is always available and is the blunt version of the first.

Hide these in the 3D view closes the eye on a row. Hidden items are still packed and still counted — it only clears the view so you can see past them.

Read the result

The panel answers whether it fitted; the canvas answers how. Read the panel first.

• Utilisation — how much of the interior volume the load occupies.
• Weight — the load against the container's ceiling, or no limit set.
• Containers — how many the plan used.
• All loaded, or did not fit — every piece placed, or the count that was left over. See breakdown lists what those pieces were.

The Breakdown tab switches between the container in front of you and the whole plan. Where the shortfall has an obvious cause, the panel says so plainly — a load that is three containers' worth of volume with one container set, or a load stuck one layer deep because nothing in it is stackable.

On a multi-container plan the header carries one numbered chip per container with its piece count, so you can see at a glance which one is carrying the load. Past six containers it becomes a pair of arrows and a sentence.

Planning a truck? See axle-load estimates and how dragging cargo changes the readings.

Move around the 3D view

On unlocked plans and complete examples, the camera controls work whether or not you are editing. They are printed under the canvas. Camera controls are paused while a custom preview is covered.

• Drag on empty space — turn the load.
• Scroll — zoom, from close enough to read one carton's face out to the whole container as a small object. It will not let you scroll away to nothing.
• Right-drag — pan.
• Click a box — select it. The card under the toggles names it and gives its size and position.

The four viewer controls

• SliceHide layers of the load to see inside it.
• DragPick boxes up and put them where you want them. See the next section.
• PlayWatch the load go in, box by box, in the order the packer worked out — what somebody standing at the container doors needs.
• Walls and CentreShow or hide the container walls; show where the load's centre of gravity sits.

The selection card

That card is the one figure somebody at the loading bay actually needs. The scene answers whether it fits; the card answers where exactly this one ended up.

The three coordinates are the near corner of the box, measured from the corner where the three arrows meet. Y 160 puts this carton's underside 160 cm up — it is in the upper layer, resting on the crates.

Drag mode

Rearranging the load by hand is the one thing this pane can do that no other surface can. You know things the packer does not — that these two pallets travel together, that the doors need clearing, that this drum is going out first at the second stop.

While it is on, a press on a box picks the box up instead of turning the scene. Press it again to give the camera its clicks back. Everything in the rest of this section needs drag mode on.

Dragging a box

Below is one carton moved out of the upper layer and set down on the free floor by the doors — the whole gesture is press, move, release.

Before — the carton picked out

After — set down at the doors

• Press and move — the box follows the pointer. A press that does not travel is a click, so you can still select without moving anything.
• Boxes stack. Move a box over another and it settles on top rather than passing through. A box left floating drops when you drag it down.
• The walls stop you. A position that would put the box through the side of the container, or into a box that is already there, is refused — the box stays where it was rather than being pushed into an overlap the plan would then carry.
• Double-click to rotate, or press O with the box selected. Either cycles the six ways a box can sit, skipping any that will not fit where it stands. A rotated carton is still the same carton; the label on its face and the selection card both follow it round.
• Release anywhere. Letting go off the canvas, over the panel, or outside the window still puts the box down.

Nudging with keys

Dragging gets a box roughly there; the keys get it exactly there. Click a box to select it, then use the cluster under your right hand. Each press moves it one step of the grid the plan is stored on, so a nudged box lands on the same lattice as a solved one.

Sideways moves settle the box onto whatever is under where it lands, the same way a drag does. U and H are the exception: they move the box straight up or down and let you park it in mid-air, which is how you build a stack from the top down. Walking a box into the container wall stops it and says so, including on key repeat.

Two things that look like faults but are not: the keys ignore you while the cursor is in a text field, because the grid above needs its own typing more than the canvas does; and a ghosted box will not move, so make it solid with G first.

Ghosts, batches, and the tricks that use them

These are for the rearrangement that a full container makes impossible one box at a time. Both are states you put a box into, and both show on the box: a ghost goes translucent, a batched box takes a red glow.

• Ghost (G) — the box stops colliding, so you can move another straight through the space it occupies. Nothing is committed while it is a ghost. Making it solid again is refused if it would land inside another box, which is the point: you cannot leave the plan in a state that will not load.
• Batch (B) — batched boxes move together. Drag or nudge any one of them and the whole group goes. If the group does not fit where you are taking it, nothing moves at all rather than the group scattering.
• Swap (S) — exchange every ghost with every batch in one press. Needs no selection. This is the fast way to trade one block of cargo for another: ghost the block that is leaving, batch the block that is arriving, press S.
• Pierce (P and F) — batch or ghost every box under the cursor, front to back through the load, in one press. Marking a whole column by hand is a click per box.
• Spread (8) — take the selected box's state and push it through every touching box of the same kind. One press marks a whole block of identical cartons.

9 and 0 are the way back out: 9 ghosts everything not batched, or un-ghosts everything if there are ghosts already; 0 clears all ghosts and batches at once.

Taking a box out of the container

M stands the selected box beside the container, out of the load. Press it again and the box goes back exactly where it came from — the spot is remembered, not guessed. If something has since been put in that space it stays outside and tells you so. This is the deliberate way out of the walls; the movement keys will not take a box through them.

On a plan with more than one container, a selected box also gets Move to container buttons, one per other container. If there is no free space in the one you pick, it says so and the box stays.

Every key, in one place

On a Mac, Command works wherever Ctrl is listed. Plain letter keys are deliberate — Ctrl+R and Ctrl+D belong to the browser, and the packer does not take them.

Saving what you rearranged

Saving forks: your arrangement becomes a new calculation with its own link, and the link you had before still shows what the packer originally decided. Nothing you do by hand can overwrite the solved plan.

Before you close the tab: a rearrangement that has not been saved is not stored anywhere. If the load in front of you is the one you want to send to the bay, save it before you navigate away — the new link is what you share, print and export from.

Get it out of the screen

A plan is only useful where the loading happens.

• Print — a report with a page per container, each drawn four ways: perspectives from opposite diagonals, plan from above, and elevation from the side, with the item list and anything that did not fit.
• Excel — the placements as a spreadsheet.
• The link — every saved calculation stays open to anyone you send it to. No account needed at their end.
• History — your saved calculations, newest first. On Business it covers everyone on your work domain, so a colleague's plan is one click away rather than an email.

If the 3D view will not start: it needs WebGL, and some machines have it switched off. In Chrome that is Settings, System, “Use graphics acceleration when available”, then restart the browser. Everything else — the packing result, the breakdown, the printed report — works without it.