Blank layout is one of the most imporant processes in stamping die design. As the major cost in sheet metal stamping is te material cost, any efforts to minimise the scrap may result in substantial savings not only in strip material, but also in overall production. This paper is maily trageted at establishing a practical blank layou optimisation system forstamping die by using AutoCAD's ObjiectARX toolkit. The basic principles of blank layout optimistaion are first descrbed. Not only a suitable algorithm for layout calculation, but also the manufacturing requirements an user operation are fully considered in this system. Finally, an algorithm for blank shape offsetting is proposed to solve the problem of selfintersection in offset curves, andd the traditional' I-step translation' algorithm for the caluction of layout parameters is improved to eliminatte the confilic between preecsion and efficiency in the layout optimisation.