UGS Launches NX 5 CAD/CAM/CAE

By DE Editors

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

On Monday UGS Corp. rolled out Version 5 of NX, its product development system. A few weeks back in “The Speaker’s Corner” (i.e., a hotel bar) at a recent briefing, Paul Brown and Richard Bush, a pair of top-shelf intellectual assets at UGS, briefed me on the announcement. Mid-Market Public Relations Director and class act Dora Smith kept the three of us in line.

If you had a picture dictionary, under the heading “well-thought out” you would find NX version 5. Just about every nook and cranny of NX has been enhanced and upgraded. This goes for little things like the fonts used in menus to bigger things like its new user interface. All the way to really big things like its new Active Mockup technology, which enables you to use one product to review design changes in the full context of the total product rather than making you load a separate application just for the review.

NX 5 offers improved algorithms for more responsiveness and enhanced role-specific interfaces so that you can customize it for training your boss. NX 5 does — alas! — eliminate something: the constraints inflicted by history-based modeling. You can now fiddle with geometry where it resides without fussing with and fretting over the design tree.

NX 5 has more features, improvements, and avenues that can lead you to greater innovation than I can get at here. To learn more, start with the video or sign up for a seminar in your area from the links in today’s Pick of the Week write-up. Additionally, DE’s Al Dean received advanced access to NX 5. You can read his review of UGS NX 5 from a link in the write-up.

Thanks, Pal. – Lockwood.

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editorial Director, Desktop Engineering

UGS Launches NX 5 CAD/CAM/CAE

Release offers to increase efficiency and streamline workflows.
UGS Corp. (Plano, TX) today announced Version 5 of NX its digital product development software. NX 5 introduces Active Mockup, a new user interface, and dozens of other enhancements intend to improve productivity, increase efficiency, and streamline workflows.    

UGS NX 5

UGS says NX 5’s Active Mockup technology is an industry first. In essence, what Active Mockup does is rapidly modify model data regardless of where the data originate. Thus, this technology enables engineers to use a single product for immediate review of design changes in the full context of their total product rather than requiring a completely separate application for the review.

NX 5’s new user interface includes enhanced role-specific interfaces, which enable companies to present NX commands appropriate to user function and expertise. In general, the interface overhaul offers redesigned menus and dialogs that adhere to the latest standards. The interface appears to have been implemented consistently throughout the software. A minor change, but one welcome by this reporter’s aging eyes, the font has been changed to one that is clearer and crisper to read.

NX 5 also introduces what UGS calls “Design Freedom” features. When UGS speaks of Design Freedom, it means the elimination of the constraints imposed by history-based or parametric systems. Designers can alter design geometry where it occurs without having to undo the design tree, which can be particularly useful for last-minute design changes or where multiple MCAD systems are supported.
   

UGS NX 5

Workflow productivity is improved in all areas of NX, according to USG, adding that customer tests indicate an overall 20 percent productivity improvement with the new user interface. NX 5 also seamlessly integrates CAD, CAM and CAE into a unified, open environment for increased product and process information efficiency.

NX 5 features new assembly constraints capabilities, and the JT lightweight 3D data format for product visualization and collaboration has been embedded.

NX 5 is available immediately. For further details, click here to go to the NX 5 landing page on the UGS website. Click here to sign up for an NX 5 seminar near you. Click here to access an online video on NX 5 (registration not required). Click here to read the advance release of DE’s product review of UGS NX 5.