Contents, compartments, and trays

An insert begins with the things you want to store. For each component, describe its measured size, quantity, and allowed orientation. BGI turns that description into a storage requirement: the clear space the contents need. Cards can produce more than one requirement when you divide a deck into stacks. A regular array of identical objects describes how those objects occupy one space; it does not request a separate pocket for every die or token.

If several requirements should share one compartment, declare a storage group. A row of card stacks, a positioned arrangement, a vertical stack, or a measured mixture of loose pieces can be grouped explicitly. A group is one space to assign, with its members still recorded in the report. It adds no divider between them. BGI does not decide on its own which components to group.

A compartment is the usable space inside physical boundaries. A grid assembly makes one or more compartments from a floor, outer walls, and shared dividers. Its members say which requirements belong in that assembly; each compartment receives its assigned contents. A removable tray is a constructed assembly with its own floor and walls that you can lift from the box. The same contents can therefore need a compartment, which belongs to an assembly, which in turn occupies part of the game box.

An existing closed container, such as a card box you already own, takes a different path. You provide its outside dimensions and removal clearance; BGI reserves a place for the whole box and cuts no panels for it. Inventory declared inside that container does not create another compartment requirement. Directly stored loose pieces still need their own floor and side walls: an adjacent removable tray or existing box cannot supply those boundaries.

The game box’s measured interior, reserved space above the insert, and material settings constrain what fits. Material thickness changes the outside size of a constructed assembly even when its compartments have the same clear dimensions. This is why a plausible storage arrangement can still be too large to build in the box.

BGI currently constructs rectangular, axis-aligned open grids with supported straight splits, T junctions, and crossings. It can build manually described removable trays and supported manual layers with explicit support and removal order. It does not create shaped pockets or angled dividers, or invent tray shapes and layer heights during automatic compartment search. A card orientation only changes the space reserved for the stack; it does not create angled card separators. Automatic layouts search supported compartment arrangements; tray layouts compare placements of trays whose compartments and geometry you have already designed.

Continue with From measurements to cut files to see how these inputs lead to layout suggestions and a cutting bundle. It also explains what you can leave automatic and what you can control yourself.