Abstract: A fast process for two-dimensional nesting of cut patterns to be cut from a sheet material such as natural and artificial leather or hide, or fabric is proposed. The proposed process of nesting incorporates heuristic rules for the initial placement of cut patterns represented at the lowest resolution. After the initialization process, the process exhaustively finds the best solution at the initial resolution. The final stage involves a multi-agent method that is hierarchical in nature. The hierarchical steps involve obtaining a feasible solution at the current resolution in which local information is used from each cut pattern to minimize a locally defined penalty function. This procedure is terminated when the desired/goal resolution is reached. This allows for a general method for parallel implementation of the multi-agent optimization scheme in which achievement of a solution occurs in a very rapid and efficient manner.