The nesting problem, also known as the irregular cutting and packing problem, is a widely studied optimization problem in the literature. Most of the papers consider heuristic approaches, followed by exact, and hybrid methods (combination of exact and heuristic methods). However, the majority of these studies do not work with the continuous/free rotation of the pieces, even though it is an important characteristic present in real-world applications. We propose an analysis of the articles that deal with the nesting problem with continuous rotation, identifying their main features and algorithms adopted. The goal is to summarize the contributions performed so far, indicating their strengths, weaknesses, and future tendencies.