Two simple extensions for use with Inkscape.

Copy or symlink the .py and .inx files to your Inkscape extensions folder, usually C:\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\inkscape\extensions on a PC or ~/.config/inkscape/extensions on MacOS/Linux, or whatever location is set in Inkscape Preferences > System > User extensions. If you checkout this repository inside your user's extensions folder, ln -s LaserPrep/*.* . will symlink all necessary files and makes it easy to git pull updates.

The following extensions will appear under Extensions > Laser Prep:

This allows you to specify kerf compensation in your document on a per-piece basis, which may be necessary for exacting fits. First, use the Stroke Width of paths to specify the width of kerf you want. Using the Join: Round stroke style setting is recommended for smoother results.

When you're ready to cut your design, select the shapes you want to process and run Flatten Strokes to Path. As basic cleanup, the extension unlinks any clones from their parent objects and converts all objects to paths. Then it duplicates the selected objects and uses Stroke to Path on the duplicates. Then it Unions the duplicates with their originals, creating new paths that have been expanded by half their stroke width. These paths are set to black fill, no stroke, 25% opacity.

This is designed specifically for export to .DXF files, particularly for use with RDWorks and the Noisebridge laser cutter. Use it when you're ready to save a .DXF file. This extension works on all objects in the document, so you do not need to select anything.

This attemps to deep-ungroup all groups, converts all objects to paths, unlinks clones from their parent objects, and then flattens all Bezier paths. Note that this will use the last-used Flatness setting from Extensions > Modify Path > Flatten Beziers, so make sure this is turned all the way down to 0.1 (or how you want it) before running this extension. That setting is preserved between Inkscape restarts, so setting it once should be sufficient.

Helpful when trying to nest objects, this extension rotates all selected objects to minimize their width.

Similarly, this rotates all selected objects to minimize the area of their bounding boxes.

This rotates the selected objects to minimize the width and area of their bounding boxes. If these are optimized at different angles, the objects are duplicated and rotated accordingly.

Lots more is possible here, and this was a quick and dirty solution to speed up my workflow. It's python-only, but much more can be done with a C++ extension. It has its hacky moments and relies on other extensions which may change.