NX features, new developments ? 1

[Lars1978]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if I can find a list of features that are being developed at Siemens?

This because I'm curious if I should stick to NX or switch to something like SW, Inventorfor or Catia in the feature.

This all depend on the pleasure an roi when working with a the program. For now NX is on the positive side of the scal but I see other programs give more and more value for money compared to NX....



Lars
NX native (NX13 or NX1847)
Solid Edge ST10
Inventor
Solidworks

 

[deedub777]

Hi Lars,

You could ask your account manager (or reseller) to enquire.

 

[Lars1978]

I hop you guys know more....

Lars
NX native (NX13 or NX1847)
Solid Edge ST10
Inventor
Solidworks

 

[looslib]

What sort of features do you need that are currently not available?


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[jerry1423]

So are you planning on changing software programs every time you see a negative change in your roi ?
NX, always has been, and always will be ahead of the competition. IMO it is because they (Siemens) owns parasolid, the geometric modeling kernel that runs most solid modeling based software.

Jerry J.
UGV5-NX11

 

[Rob_N]

I've used NX for about 20 years now. We considered moving to Catia all together about 15 or so years ago when our primary customers used it. We had a seat of each. Catia, Ideas and UG.
Catia's drafting blew NX away IMO, probably still does. Plotting still sucks on NX.
I'm glad we stuck it out. All of our primary customers moved to NX. So Catia and Ideas were dropped. With my AS50501 bundle Catiav5 translators are included.

Even though NX owns Parasolid, they still don't use all of Parasolids functionality. I get Parasolid files from vendors using Visi with Curves and points. NX can import them, but not export them.

SolidEgde, Solidworks and inventor dont work well with freeform surfaces so those were not an option

 

[Toost]

The development plans are of course a secret, as for all product developing companies.

If you are interested in what's in the short future, visit the PLM Europe or the PLM World.
There the respective product manager will speak about the official plans, "the next version will include xyz and possibly the version after that will...".
If they have something really revolutionary under development, like for example the Convergent technology, they will not mention that until it is close to release.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[s_hightower]

At my current place of employment (been here for 3 years), I used CREO for a few months and have used NX for the rest of the time. Before that, I've used CREO (or ProE, Wildfire, etc) for 15+ years. The company that I'm working with now is quite large.
Last year about 20 to 30 of us (representing different groups within the company) got together for 2 weeks of evaluating CATIA. We had CATIA reps here who were doing the training. About 3/4 the people in the room were using NX while the remainder were using CREO. The goal of the 2 week introduction was to see if CATIA would be the new common software to use. It was understood by all in the room that NX was NOT the software to use. After the 2 weeks of training, it was decided that CATIA did not work out because of cost; so we are staying where we are at for now.
During the training, I was recognizing that (IMO) CREO was better than CATIA, but CATIA was better than NX. The current CREO users still liked CREO, but I think some were willing to go to CATIA to have a common software. NX was NOT the choice for the new software. Even though I (and others) thought that CREO was still better than CATIA, I was willing to go to CATIA just to get away from NX.
Once the meetings were concluded, talk went on for awhile to possibly switch to CREO. Unfortunately, work loads and deadlines continued, so we haven't been able to switch to CREO yet. Hopefully that will happen sometime.

 

[jerry1423]

Two weeks on NX is not nearly long enough. I have been using it for over 30 years and am constantly learning new things on it.
Maybe read case studies on-line about companies who moved from other CAD systems to NX.

Jerry J.
UGV5-NX11

 

[s_hightower]

Jerry1423, I've been using NX for 3 years and had the CATIA training for 2 weeks. Anyway, I have had a decent amount of exposure to NX and so had many people who were in the training room to get exposed to CATIA. I agree, there is a lot to learn with NX. I can try to do things many different ways. I just wish I could figure out how to get assembly constraints to work. I have corresponded with many in a different forum. Some people say they stay away from assembly constraints as much as possible. Unfortunately for me and others, it's not the new things that have proven to be constant trouble - it's the assembly constraints and other things in the assembly environment.

 

[Lars1978]

i'm using Solid Works for 5 weeks now and I really love the way it works with the contrains.... Mayby NX should take a good look at the competition (while it's still possible )

Lars
NX native (NX13 or NX1847)
Solid Edge ST10
Inventor
Solidworks

 

[s_hightower]

Hey Lars1978, you are the second person that I've recently seen that has recommended that NX look at their competition. It would be a very good idea if they would figure some things out. I've used the assembly constraints in CREO effortlessly for years, so I was completely shocked then and daily annoyed and frustrated now with how bad it is in NX. NX's assembly constraint behavior now would have been considered a bug in Pro-E 10 years ago. Maybe that's why some NX users in a different forum have told me to avoid assembly constaints as much as possible. It's crazy...

 

[jerry1423]

I like some things about SolidWorks too, but I found it to be limited at what it is capable of compared to NX.

Jerry J.
UGV5-NX11

 

[JohnRBaker]

s_hightower, What version of NX are you using?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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

 

[s_hightower]

I'm currently using the dreaded NX 12.0.1.7. Unfortunately, I've communicated to our tech support how bad it is; but I was told that we aren't updated to a new MP until sometime in Q2.

 

[NutAce]

but I was told that we aren't updated to a new MP until sometime in Q2.

New MP? They should update to MR NX12.0.2

And what kind of issues do you have with the Assembly Constraints? I never had any issues with them, but that could be because I am used to them.

Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX12 / TC11

 

[Toost]

S_hightower, I am curious . I have almost zero experience of other systems.
can you elaborate on the impressions you have from this evaluation you did ?
some details on what is better and why ?
what aspects was tested ?
the issue with assembly constraints, a little more detail on what's wrong ?

regards,
Tomas

 

[s_hightower]

Hi Nutace and Toost. I'll try to answer your questions. I apologize if it comes across confusing. I have a cold and have been awake during the night. I am sober... but I have some sleep deprivation and am on cold meds. )

NutAce, With the MP update, I don't know why tech support is waiting until Q2. I know there's been updates available and I believe I even told them that one was ready. Since then, I'm just trying to get by.
As far as the assembly constraint problems, I'm having two different types of problems with assembly constraints. The first group or type of problem is specifically because of NX 12.0.1.7. I've been told and seen documented that there are bugs with this MP. With this, NX is just very slow - especially if I have an assembly drawing in session. I'll try not to have a drawing in session, but sometimes I have to and still make assembly changes. When assembling components with NX 12.0.1.7, it just takes a very long time for NX to recognize that I'm trying to select an axis or other feature. NX just sits there for a very long time and it might take a few minutes just to get one axis aligned to another axis.
The other type of assembly constraints that I have always had has been more of how the assembly constraints are managed. It has been this way in NX 9, as well. When I'm adding components to an assembly, I can have already assembled 50 components and the constraint navigator will be clean (error free). I'll add one more component and assign an assembly constraint and next thing I know, I will have 50 assembly constraint icons in red - showing that there's a problem. It's been frustrating for me to have to then weed through them all and find out where the particular problem is. I've seen posts on a different forum where tips or recommendations have been given to find out what the problem is, but it's can still be a very time consuming process. Other users in that other forum have said that they avoid assembly constraints whenever possible. When assembling components, I'll sometimes accidentally pay more attention to the main screen and forget to look at the constraint navigator. The components will appear to be assembling correctly in the main window, but then I'll look at the constraint navigator and there will be red error icons all over.

Toost, the overall purpose of evaluating CATIA was to check out their electrical routing package - wire/cable routing. That included the schematic work, developing symbols, connectors and also routing wires. During that time, I found that CREO was easier to use. In previous jobs, I spent most of my time using Pro-Diagram and then later on spent a good amount of my time routing wiring harnesses. Based on that experience, I just thought that CREO was easier to learn than CATIA. Others in the room (including myself) were confused about the different roles we had to be using to complete different tasks.
While we were doing that formal training, I was also trying to work with sheet metal (create a sheet metal part), assemble components and create parts. I was making some progress, but I didn't have as much time available as I would have liked. It did look like there was potential, but I was primarily trying to figure that out on my own while others were doing other exercises.
Hopefully the description of my assembly constraint problems that I listed for NutAce describe what you are asking about.
When assembling components in CREO, I would know immediately if there was a problem and I would know specifically what the problem was - therefore it was easy to fix. I've explained my assembly constraint woes to a different forum many times. Again, an easy fix has never really been suggested. Unfortunately, others advise to stay away from constraints as much as possible.

Within CREO, it's also easier to pattern components, move components to different sub-assemblies (while keeping the constraints between those components) and so on. It's also easier just to tell what is a part, an assembly or a drawing. I once saw a long tutorial about how to figure that out in NX - while it's straightforward in CREO.
CREO also seems more user friendly with less mousepicks needed. NX just seems to require more mousepicks/selections to take place to complete a task.
In NX, I can try to assemble two components next to each other and it seems like NX frequently tries to assemble one component within the other component (interference) instead of assuming you want to have them side by side and not interfere. Sketcher constraints were a lot more intuitive in CREO. I could keep rambling and just list many things, but this is some of the differences I see between CREO and NX. Some like NX and some like CREO.

 

[cowski]

s_hightower,
You can toggle on the display of assembly constraints in the main graphics window; they will change color if there is a conflict. I'd suggest keeping them visible while adding new components/constraints (I toggle them off after adding a component to de-clutter the display). I know it won't solve all your constraint issues, but it will at least alert you sooner that something went wrong.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[s_hightower]

Hi cowski,
Thanks for the recommendation. I have typically turned them off from the beginning since they can cause clutter, but I do see your point about them alerting on screen if there's a problem. I'll have to check that out. Thanks