NX for architecture. 2

[vnet]

Hi, I would like to know if NX is used by any architects? I learned on AutoCAD way back in the eighties and I prefer not using it in 2023.
I design products and mechanical things and would like to use NX to model buildings, can it handle the amount of data? I have a fast computer and graphics card.
When I use Revit to design buildings I ask myself why not use NX modeling which I am more comfortable with than Revit.
I see no real information about architects using NX.

Thanks, Buddy.

 

[JohnRBaker]

While I know people who have used NX for facility layout work (I've done it myself) that's not what it was designed to do and therefore it doesn't have the features needed to design a structure like a building or to map out a site plan. What I mean is, there are no tools for things like adding doorways, windows, HVAC, lighting, etc. Also no tools to use plat date to layout a building site.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

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

 

[vnet]

Kind of a bummer. So windows and doors aside because I could make those and even HVAC could be blocked in place as well as some lighting locations does NX have enough muscle to handle all the parts of a medium size residential home.
I have seen large assemblies of ships done in NX. As for plot data I agree with you and would like to see at a minimum NX to come up with a good export solution so the the model could be imported into a good rendering program like lumion or VRay or Twinmotion
those programs would handle the site and landscape. Maybe FBX or anything reliable or Sketchup or Rhino.

Thanks, Buddy.

 

[JohnRBaker]

When I said 'plot data' I meant what the land surveyors measured and then what the contractor want's to do with the plot such as back-filling and grading.

As for the amount a data that can be shown, this is another issue. Back when CAD systems were being developed, the general rule was that when used to design machinery and such, what NX was developed for, this required double-precision math. However, for AEC (Architectural Engineering Construction) they tended to use single-precision or even no floating point numbers at all, in other words, only integers (note that this may have changed from when McDonnell was selling a system for the AEC market, which was called GDS, which was sold off when EDS acquired the company in 1991). Now back then, in addition to GDS, Intergraph sold an AEC system, but I know that a lot of people were using AutoCAD for that type of work. But with respect to the size an assembly, NX can handle some pretty big models, but the truth is, with it's double-precision math, so it's still probably overkill.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

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

 

[matnas]

Hi.
From NX2212 you have NX BIM module and you can export/import IFC files.

https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/nx-design/whats-new-in-nx-bim/

https://docs.sw.siemens.com/en-US/doc/209349590/PL20221117716122093.xid2113474/xid2113475

/Mattias

NX5 -> NX2306
I-deas 12, NX I-deas6.6
Solid Works 2021

 

[Toost]

There are some AEC companies using NX where the selling point has been "Complex geometry".
Revit, as mentioned, is niched on buildings but cannot handle geometry more complex than flat surfaces.
NX is still very capable of handling very large assemblies, Our company handle assemblies +20 000 components daily.
NX has the ability to load only what's needed into the session which i think might be unique.

NX2212 introduced, as Mattias mentions, a brand new application NX for BIM.
it follows a workflow quite similar to Revit.
NX Has since a number of years back an integration to the component library CADENAS where one can find windows and doors etc from the suppliers.
drag-drop.

Regards,
Tomas

The more you know about a subject, the more you know how little you know about that subject.

 

[vnet]

Thanks to all, it sure looks like NX BIM is in it's infant stage and not refined. I have solid modeled a two story house and in very fine details, similar to the level of details that some Rhino and even Sketchup users are able to model in there buildings but in Rhino I could probably render in a well known and accepted rendering program. V-Ray or others. The BIM in NX is all very associated and parametric linked up but when I model a building in NX I simply create one part and do a sketch for some walls then extrude them and then remove all parameters and even delete the sketch so that I am left with a dumb solid. Now synchronous modeling and Boolean operations and move rotate and pattern all become very easy and flexible to spend time on designing the building and the only thing left would be create some drawings and last but not least would be V-Ray inside NX or NX export communications to a good rendering program like Lumion where you can place your model from NX at exactly (0,0,0) Should be easy Right, and some texture mapping abilities inside NX so that materials also translate to rendering.
I simply want the design details and not be limited by a program that only deals with flat planner stuff and then be able to render buildings in a building rendering program, I already use keyshot for smaller products.
I am a product designer by trade and it seems to me that a house is also a product like a car a boat or anything else that is physical.

Buddy.

 

[vnet]

Follow up, I just want to understand some things. So "BIM" it seems to me is a program any of them (Revit, Archicad, NX BIM and I could go on here) specifically designed for one thing, to make buildings in context to the world and site data and documentation and everything you will need to design a building all in a very simple solid modeling environment simple planner, blocked in place parametrically linked up through families which are also based on planner rectangular parts all in an effort to dumb down the amount of data so that files are not to big and renderings are manageable. A lot to take in in one sentence but that is how I see it. I attached a model that I made in not much time, a few hours in NX (1949 Ryzen 3900 and an Nvidia RTXA-4000 graphics card) and while there is no roof or windows or doors on this model it has the fundamental building blocks and is one part not even an assembly and 3MB. I have no problem working with dumb solids to do edits and to split parts into many pieces if I need to edit something, then unite them back together again, use some Boolean operations and then remove parameters from everything not to mention layers and the ability to turn on or off layers so that you can work on isolated parts. I feel I am doing the same thing that a "BIM" modeling program is at least from the design of the building. As long as I am not adding a lot of features like fillets or threads or anything that would dramatically increase the file data too much.
If NX has gone to the extent of designing there own "BIM" workbench and a note I did not see any mention about site and topography support, wouldn't it help to have a some communication with the rendering companies I mentioned before and develop a way for NX users to output there design so that I do not have to learn and design in a unfamiliar and "lesser" program all so that I can reliably output a file extension that is known to work for rendering architectural items. NX out of the box has all the tools I would need and am very productive in. John mentioned that NX was designed primarily for machine design and forgive me for asking but what if this two story structure that I made which is 35' X 38' was called a machine and not a house, would that make a difference? John I did not know you were still contributing in you retirement but thanks for your deep knowledge of NX and other things it is always welcome and I am not trying to win any arguments made here just trying to understand why some very simple inexpensive programs can do what I think NX a nurbs based program should be able to do. Any input would be welcome. I will learn these other programs if I have to but but it makes no sense to me to learn the same tools I already know well.
Thanks again, Buddy

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, not to drag this out, but I went and looked a the links provided by Mattias on the 27th (thank you). In all honesty, I was not aware of these new BIM (Building Information Management) capabilities being added to NX. That being said, what everyone needs to know is that this does NOT make NX suitable for use as an AEC (Architectural Engineering Construction) system, at least not in the sense of being used to design buildings to the level of details needed to erect a structure from scratch.

From what I read in the links and what I know we were attempting to develop NX for when I was still with the company, it would appear to me that the BIM tools are intended to help layout and manage factory and manufacturing facilities. In other words, to 'model' existing structures, NOT design new ones. This would be done so as to allow for the layout of production facilities including such things as assembly lines, robotic work cells, material flow routes in a factory, etc.

Let me give you a real world example. Back when I was working as an actual machine designer, before CAD was even available, I worked for a company that designed and manufactured large chemical and food processing equipment. I worked in the food division where he designed and manufactured commercial bakery equipment, primary for pan breads (loaves of sliced bread and hamburger/hot dog buns). Now these machines could be be very large, often larger than Buddy's 35' X 38' example (some of our tunnel ovens were over 100' long). Now in the vast majority of cases, the buildings where these bakeries were being installed already existed. In fact, most of them had often been used for some other purpose, such as a grocery warehouse or some other such structure and even in buildings which were originally built to house a bakery operation, we were often coming in and replacing 50 and 60 year old production lines. Only once in my 11 years working in that job was I ever involved in helping to get a production line up and running in a brand new building.

Now as part of my job, and others who worked for the company, was that we needed to know about the building where our machinery was going to be installed and often the architectural blueprints provided by the customer (and remember, this back in the days when everything was on paper) were out-of-date as changes had been made the building. On more than one occasion I had to fly to some city and using a 50' steel tape, a quadrille pad and pencil, I would have to sketch out an 'as-built' drawing, which I would then have to go back and layout to scale so that we could position our production machinery and the necessary conveyors systems tying them all together (my first job as a new engineer was working in the conveyor division). We also needed to know where the various services tied into the building like, power, water, gas (after all, you had to bake the bread) and sometime steam and HVAC connections. Now we drew these out on paper with enough detail so as to be able install the machinery and make the appropriate connections and such, but these drawing were never what you would have needed to build the structures, rather we were 'modeling' what we needed to do OUR jobs, which was to design, manufacture and install a commercial bakery production line.

Now, a few years before I left that company and went to work for McDonnell Douglas, we bought a Unigraphics (the precursor to NX) CAD system which we used to design and manufacture our machinery. And yes, we also used it so make those layouts showing the buildings and facilities where that machinery was going to be installed. In fact, I spent about half my time writing GRIP programs to automate as much of this process as possible including programs to draw-up what we called 'installation drawings' which showed how some of our larger pieces of equipment, like one of those 100' long ovens, would fit into the area of a building where it was going to be erected and how and where it would connected to the building services, including sometime where and how it would be attached to the actual walls and structural aspects of a building. Now this was all back in the later 70's when most all of CAD was still basically 2D and our output was still paper, just that they were produced on a plotter and not a drawing board.

From what I've read, it would seem that these new BIM tools would be the sort of thing that we could have used back in those days, only now it would be in full 3D, and it could used where ever a customer needed to integrate their products, either at an existing customer's site or perhaps even their own if they're using NX to design and layout a factory production system. But again, they're no going to use NX to design a new building, other than perhaps to produce proposals of spatial utilization which would be taken by the architect as a starting point using a true AEC system.

Anyway, I hope I've made it more clear as to what it is that I think NX's role would be in work like this and how it's probably going to used, even as new capabilities are being added which go way beyond the tools that we had 'back in the old days'.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

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

 

[vnet]

Thanks to all with the exception of ewh I like hearing these stories of how things used to be as it relates to today.
I am 59 years old and learned my first cad in AutoCAD when things were 2D then Solidworks and Rhino and eventually NX with no regrets.
Now it is not the seventies or eighties and software workflows change. As of May 2023 I see Solidworks and twinmotin do in fact have a data exchange program (20MB) that you can download from twinmotion for free.
I think that is because many solidworks users have asking for the same thing.

Thanks, I will leave it there.

Buddy.