Features you wish NX had? 32

[junfanbl]

Hello, I am curious to know peoples opinions on what they like most about NX and some new features( or improvements) that it could use. I know I can think of some myself. I ask because I am always trying to gather ideas on how to better utilize the software in my own personal workflow. Part of that for me is developing scripts and stand alone libraries that extend NX functionality.

So I thought what better way to get ideas than to ask the engineering community in general. Your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Xwheelguy]

I've done that on occasion and have had people stand there and wait for something to happen.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 9.0.3.4 Win7 Pro x64 SP1
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[JohnRBaker]

That's interesting because about 10 or 15 years ago we looked into using the 'Dragon' voice recognition software with, at the time, Unigraphics. We even had one very large customer who had done some work on this themselves and had a rudimentary version of UG running using voice recognition. While a lot of people expressed interest, the technology was too limited at the time and nothing ever really came of it.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Xwheelguy]

Sounds like the perfect final ER to submit before you go, John.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 9.0.3.4 Win7 Pro x64 SP1
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[JavadM]

diameter dimensioning..

like catia (look at the "D")

in solidworks also it can be done,
its in sketch
and needs a centerline for dimensioning, you select centerline and a point or line. then the position of mouse defines Radius or diameter. really cool capability.
i wish such like that for NX too.

i attached a video of that.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I don't write ER's, I only write PR's. But as an old development manager once told me, "If properly written, any ER can be turned into a PR."

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[MtnJunkie360]

The ability to use a "Datum coordinate system" or preferably a MCS as the reference Coordinates of all point dialogue box's and line creation/edit dialog box's. This comes into play for me in many places, manual edit of toolpath, creating points, creating 3D lines to drive tools down.

Most all of the parts we build come in on the Airplane Coordinate system, ie. 900 inches from zero, and angled in both directions.
There are several good reasons we leave the part in this location. New Revs coming in, receiving point clouds for new hole locations or inspection.

Say i right click on an operation to edit the toolpath. The list of toolpath is from the MCS. Ie. say 2" in Z. When i goto edit the piece of toolpath, im brought to the point dialog, with a few choices of a reference coordinate system... all of which are 900" and crooked, meaningless numbers to me trying to edit anything.

The easiest thing i guess would be to in that pull down in the point dialog, to include all MCS? or Datum planes, Datum Coordinate systems? anything, even if i have to build something on top of, and aligned to my current MCS.

For me, this would come into play in many places, points, 3d lines, assembly locations for clamps. Basically every dialog that comes up only has the 900 inch, useless numbers and i have to roundaboutly get things where i want. "Rectangular Offset along vector" in the point dialog is a common fix. But many clicks.

Unless i'm missing something and this is solved another way?

 

[cowski]

Unless i'm missing something and this is solved another way?

In modeling, you can right click the datum csys and choose "set WCS to datum csys". The point/curve creation tools have an option to reference the WCS rather than the absolute csys. Also, the information functions give results in WCS as well as absolute coordinates.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[markrief]

An MCS is not a modeling object, so I'm not sure how we would list them all as references.
I would define a Datum CSYS at each MCS location, and then reference it for each MCS, and move the WCS there when needed.

There is a Manufacturing Preference to always move the WCS to the active MCS. This is great when editing a CAM operation, but not when editing the tool path. I'll ask about that one...

Mark Rief
NX CAM Customer Success
Siemens PLM Software

 

[jerry1423]

I want to completely turn off model view clipping planes.

 

[JohnRBaker]

You would NOT like the consequences.

The reason for model view Clipping Planes is to limit the volume of graphics space that needs to be mapped and the impact that this has on the absolute 'tolerance' needed to assure that objects displayed appear to be both accurate and what was expected. If we just assumed an infinite volume of space how would we control the display 'tolerance' of very small objects versus very large objects if they both 'looked' the same 'size' when viewed on your monitor after doing a 'Fit' operation?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

Auto scrolling would be pretty nice, especially in Drafting. I.e one drags something, a dimension, a view, a note, a..., and reach the edge of the screen. "All other software" will then autoscroll/ auto-pan the screen, but not NX.

Dave W., -Are you reading this ?

Regards,
Tomas

 

[fzrboy]

A shortcut switch between NX Windows will be neat like Ctrl+Tab

 

[Rob_N]

One of the things I liked about Catia v5 was you could have all the windows open, but small and copy/paste or drag and drop features or components between them.
I only trained on catia, i never used it for a job. we decided to stick with UG. but thats one of this things that stood out. some 10 years or so ago now

 

[Dave K]

A better external thread tool, and/or parametric external thread callout on drawings, like the hole callout for internal threads.

-Dave

NX 9, Teamcenter 10

 

[JohnRBaker]

A shortcut switch between NX Windows will be neat like Ctrl+Tab

That'll be available in NX 11.0.

John R. Baker, P.E.
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[RyanVLee]

Take PMI out of Mach 3 and move it to Mach 1 I cant justify the added cost for just that one benefit

Ryan Lee
Mechanical Project Engineer

NX 9.0.3.12
Aras 11 SP 5
If you can think it it can be modeled

 

[Rob_N]

Better yet, just make PMI part of drafting or solid modeling license.
I wish I had a Mach bundle, my NX ADVDES bundles are getting old but my boss doesn't see a justification in updating them.

 

[RyanVLee]

Better yet, just make PMI part of drafting or solid modeling license.
I wish I had a Mach bundle, my NX ADVDES bundles are getting old but my boss doesn't see a justification in updating them.

I did that same project stand alone to mach 2 years ago I used the added functionality of sheet metal we only had one licenses and reduced maintenance cost to sell it but i have never been able to justify the 6k kick in price for PMI and Advance stuido the two functions i can see us using out of MACH 3

PM i am willing to share my ROI's and project if you want to try to get it done

Ryan Lee
Mechanical Project Engineer

NX 9.0.3.12
Aras 11 SP 5
If you can think it it can be modeled

 

[stormyb]

Create a tab in sheet metal like on the screenshot.Now I have to create a tab and a cutout.

Or create multiple secondary tabs in one feature on an existing tab. More like the extrude behavior.

 

[MR76]

I would say...

New fully-associative “thread feature” (for bolts, screws...). Same as we have for “hole features”.

Thread feature is associated to faces, but if that face changes, and the feature becomes "broken" from its parent, you won´t be able to re-associate.
If only you have one of them... well is not that bad, but imagine this situation with 30 of them.
Hole feature works smoothly, and I think, something like that for thread feature is quite necessary.

By the way, drafting application: about hole callout, when we have threaded holes... is there any chance, we can display "thread size" without pitch??
For example if I have M12 x 1.5, just display "M12" (I don’t understand why we have to display thread size and pitch, we do can display pitch only, but can’t display thread size only).


THANKS!