NX4 To 7.5, Transform Usage... 1

[4mranch6]

The NX7.5 new guy again seeking answers to new method of Transform and/or Moving Objects similar to NX4 Transform.

I can move parts and copy lines/annotation/parts with the Move Object function, but I have yet to figure out how to copy multiples. In NX4 one could select an item and copy it in increments within Transform. How can this old way of copying be done in NX7.5?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[JohnRBaker]

If we're talking about geometric objects, such as curves and bodies, have you looked at...

Insert -> Associative Copy -> Instance Geometry...

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[woodfox]

Hallo 4mranch6,

set the variable UGII_ENABLE_TRANSFORM_LEGACY_OPTIONS=1
in our environment, then you have the full functionality with the old transform dialog in NX7.5.
With the new move object function it’s not possible.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Please, do NOT become dependent on obsolete and soon to be removed functionality. It's better to learn how to use the fully supported capabilities of the system.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[4mranch6]

That was my intent by asking for advice on this issue. I am still experimenting with the latest functions to get a similar result that the old NX4 Transform provided.

Being able to clock copied lines and/or arcs sure came in handy at times. I have looked thru the Move Object and Transform options and have yet to duplicate this feature.

 

[cowski]

I have looked thru the Move Object and Transform options and have yet to duplicate this feature.

You can stop looking there because you won't find what you are looking for, which is why John suggested: Insert -> Associative Copy -> Instance Geometry...
The instance geometry command is like a more flexible 'array' command.
If you don't want the copies to be associative, no problem - there is a toggle in the command for associative/non-associative.

 

[4mranch6]

That is what I was looking for, I apologize for misunderstanding John's original advice. Thanks again everyone for your help.

By the way, I am liking NX7.5 and all the new features.

 

[JohnRBaker]

And for the record, in the next release of NX we are replacing 'Instance Feature' with 'Pattern Feature' which will provide an almost unlimited number of options and methods for creating 'Patterns' of features (which includes standalone bodies so there will no longer be any need to create dummy feature groups and such).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[woodfox]

How can I quote a post?

Please note, I'm not a native speaker!

 

[cowski]

Surround the quote with TGML quote tags:
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will show up as:

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Click the "Process TGML" link below the reply text box for a listing of all the tags allowed with examples.

 

[woodfox]

cowski (Mechanical)
19 Apr 11 16:57
.....

Click the "Process TGML" link below the reply text box for a listing of all the tags allowed with examples.

@cowski

Many thanks for your help!

 

[RonnyC]

Please, do NOT become dependent on obsolete and soon to be removed functionality. It's better to learn how to use the fully supported capabilities of the system.

Sorry to hijack this already aging post.
I am wondering why you say the "old style" transform functionality should become obsolete.

As an UG/NX user with over 12 years of experience I am increasingly finding myself navigating endlessly through menus and dropdownlist, clicking foldable submenus, unticking boxes, ... to find functionality which was 2 clicks away in the pre-NX5 era.

The transform/move issue is a good example. I am not dissing the new functionality, progress is good and usefull but the old transform options also had their merits.

I realize this is at least partly due to the " old habits die hard " phenomena , but I my opinion the increasing complexity which comes with the increased functionality is hindering my everyday workflow. I 'm sure if I did a comparison, I would find I am making significantly more mouseclicks for the same job in NX7.5 compared to NX3.

In my opinion the advantage NX has over Catia V5 is the flexibility to either go quick-and-simple or go the V5-highend-way. I have the feeling I am loosing that flexibility.

Therefore my plea to keep the old transform functionality available for us old-school designers

Hope this doesn't come over too naggy , just thought I give you some feedback from my point-of-view

thanks


Regards,
Ronny

 

[JohnRBaker]

We understand, but...

To start with ANY function which is built using the old style (pre-NX 5.0) dialogs will never be usable with Journals which will limit your ability to add a next level of productivity by capturing common workflows and assigning them to a toolbar icon or menu item.

Second, in the case of something like Edit -> Transform, these older functions were not feature-based which means that again you will be limited in how well they could be integrated into smart models and product templates which may allow you to capture reusable design intent for items and products where future examples are simple variations-on-a-theme type designs.

Third, if you don't remove (or at least initially hide) the old functionality this will make the product look even MORE complex as users will see multiple functions which appear to do identical or nearly identical tasks.

There's an old adage in the software business which states that "You cannot make something simpler by adding to it".

Along with this, if we DO leave the old functions in then what level of documentation and help files do we need to maintain? Again, this will make the product look more complex than it really is, particularly to new users who have NO emotional attachment to the legacy commands yet are still seeing them as supposedly fully supported (they're on the toolbar/menu and there's help files/documentation describing what they do).

Fourth, and while many existing users scoff at this idea, but the truth of the matter is that these legacy functions, when they are not hidden, makes NX look old and outdated and as such makes it harder to sell against products which have the 'luxury' of still using the same consistent user interface they've always had (that is they never evolved from a pre-Windows, totally hierarchically-menu driven interface). And while it might be hard for longterm customers, particularly those who ARE emotionally attached to these legacy functions, to appreciate or even accept, if we do NOT continue to sell our software to NEW customers or expand it's usage inside of existing customers (which often entails the same issues as selling to a new customer if we're dealing with large and diversified companies) and increase our maintenance paying client base, we will not remain a viable entity nor will we be able to continue to invest in our products to keep them up-to-date and leading edge.

And lastly, which is a corollary to the industry adage I quoted above, if these functions are left in the product, even if well hidden, they still have to be maintained by our R&D staff, meaning that the code has to be tested, verified, certified on new platforms, internal documentation maintained, debugged when changes elsewhere impacts these older routines, etc. All of this activity takes away from the resources needed to continue to enhance and maintain the fully supported functionality.

I know this is a highly contrived example, but bare with me for a moment. The first car I learned to drive had an 8-track tape deck factory installed in the dash just below the radio. Now what if I had purchased a bunch of 8-track tapes and when I went to buy my own car I demanded that it have an 8-track tape deck in it despite the fact that cassette tapes where the current state-of-the-art. Now I had started to buy some new cassette tapes so I wanted to have both style of tape players in my new car. Now a few years later, I've still got my oldies on 8-track, a bunch of cassettes and I've even started to acquire some CD's, so now I'm demanding that the manufacturer include THREE media players to meet my needs, emotional though some of it is might be. And now when I look at a new car I realize that if it's Bluetooth enabled I can access the playlist on my new iPhone, but since I've still got those now really valuable 8-tracks I still want to listen to once in awhile, and then there's those cassettes and I can't just dump my CD collection... Well, you get the point, eh? ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

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

 

[spiritrider97]

I agree with Ronny C. But it isn’t entirely that old habits die hard but more like making things more difficult than need be. NX is getting increasingly more difficult to use. The comment that was made “Please, do NOT become dependent on obsolete and soon to be removed functionality” isn’t the point from my view. Don’t take away something that worked very well and replace it with something that is more difficult. And to remove legacy commands that are existing currently and working is ignorant and obviously not listening to customer needs.
Your comparison with going from an 8-track tape to a cassette is just my point. It went from a tape that had four tracks to a tape that only had two. Simpler. Didn’t involve songs being divided between two tracks. Better. And of course CD’s are all on one side. Even simpler. Progressively easier to use. Plus the nonsensical renaming of commands happens once again in an NX update. Reposition Component changes to Move, Substitute Component is now Replace Component, and of course Blank is now Hide, but is still Control+B . Explain that to a new NX user.
And a previous comment about just adding an extra click should be a big deal (I think that was from a thread concerning Split Body and having to Remove Parameters after doing so), is another comment that bothers me and others that I work with. With this “upgrade” to NX7.5 we have been inundated with extra clicks which equates to needless frustration.
Unlike Ronny C I do not mind coming off too naggy. I just hope that in the future NX developers consider all users points of view. NX was way better to use than Catia and now it’s almost on par with Catia. Ugh!

 

[cubalibre000]

Hi,
I like to much the UI and the command interface in NX 7.5 and better in NX8.
I think that are going in the right way.

I use the old transform command because the scale is not present in the new command.
I talk about the scale transform command in the drafting environment.
I wrong or I need to ask en ER ?

Thank you...

Using NX 7.0.1.7 MP3 and TC8.1

 

[JohnRBaker]

There is NO problem using the albeit old-style Edit -> Transform dialog as it comes out-of-the-box in NX 7.5 since it contains those items which have NOT yet been replaced by other more modern functions such as Edit -> Move Object and Insert -> Associative Copy -> Instance Geometry. As mentioned by Cubalibre00 the current Transform still provides Mirror and Scale functions for curves.

Note that my previous comments were NOT made with respect to this situation, but rather when users go out of their way to enable dialogs which HAVE been all but obsoleted. In the case of Edit -> Transform this would be using an UNPUBLISHED, UNDOCUMENTED and officially UNSUPPORTED variable to enable the OLD dialog rather than the abbreviated version (mentioned above) which is still fully supported.

I just want to make sure that people understood that Edit -> Transform had not been removed from NX, rather it has been reduced in scope due to new functions providing updated capabilities using dialogs based on the new NX 5.0 (Jounaling-enabled) style dialogs as well as providing a higher level of Parameteric and/or feature-based results.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

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

 

[rg006]

I would just like to voice my opinion on this as well. I am a recent convert from NX4 to NX6. I started in NX3 I believe. My overall opinion of NX6 is that I dont like it.

First off, it is more taxing on our computers and therefore slows our system down. I understand that new products require new systems, but at some point that just becomes a burden on the end consumer. We actually just went back to NX4 because NX6 ran so much slower. On the CAM side this is really bad. Some buttons I used to click would open up immediately in NX4, and now take about 6 to 12 seconds to open in NX6. Thats not too bad until you have to click 4 buttons to define all your cutting requirements. One day, we will probably get new computers, but in tough economic times, this just pushes our company away from wanting to use NX altogether. We have had serious discussions now about just switching to solidworks. I wonder if at some point we will have to get a new computer everytime a new version of NX comes out?

My point really is just that at some point, it becomes more cost efficient to quit updating UG and end the maintence costs, and quit buying new computers, and quit paying for new training, and just stay with one version for around 10 years before buying a different CAD system.