Technology Breakthroughs Establish New Flexibility and Productivity Paradigms for Working with 2D Data and Massive Assemblies
New Functionality Expands NX Leadership in Freeform Shape Design, PLM Integration, and Product Development Decision-Making
PLANO, Texas, October 14, 2013 – The latest version of Siemens’ NX™ software (NX 9) includes new capabilities and technological breakthroughs that deliver enhanced product development flexibility and up to five times higher productivity across multiple industries. New tools like synchronous technology for 2D greatly facilitate 2D data editing. The introduction of fourth generation design (4GD) technology will enhance design productivity for massive assemblies. And NX Realize Shape™ software delivers a new state-of-the-art freeform design toolset with unmatched product development integration. NX 9 also includes tighter PLM integration through Siemens’ Active Workspace environment, as well as multiple enhancements throughout the integrated CAD/CAM/CAE solution. The enhancements in NX 9 are aimed at creating value by addressing issues common to multiple industries such as automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, consumer products, machinery and others.
“NX 9 represents a very significant step forward for Siemens, our customers, and for product development in general,” said Jim Rusk, senior vice president, Product Engineering Software, Siemens PLM Software. “With significant new breakthroughs such as synchronous technology for 2D, 4GD and NX Realize Shape, we are offering our customers unprecedented design flexibility while significantly increasing their product development productivity. And by leveraging our successful Active Workspace solution, we are enhancing the high definition user experience that helps our customers make smarter decisions that result in better products.”
While 3D modeling is the preferred method of product design throughout the world, 2D drawings and 2D product data – in a wide variety of digital formats – are still used in virtually every industry in some aspects of product development. Unfortunately, due to incompatible data structures and inconsistent CAD technology, working with these 2D files is typically tedious and time consuming. Synchronous technology for 2D eliminates these problems by adding intelligence to 2D data without the need for translation, enabling users to intuitively edit multi-CAD 2D files up to five times faster. This can be particularly useful for industries such as automotive, aerospace, machinery and others with large amounts of legacy 2D product data.
“Siemens’ synchronous technology for 2D is a Next Generation 2D tool that ad-dresses many of the downfalls of drafting and sketching,” said Chad Jackson, Principal Analyst for Lifecycle Insights, a leading PLM research and advisory firm. “It ‘understands’ the geometric relationships inherent in 2D drawings and applies user-controlled assumptions at the point of change to enable intelligent modifications. It also applies these assumptions locally instead of globally to ensure fast performance.”
The new NX Realize Shape offering in NX 9 provides a unique freeform design environment for producing products with highly stylized shapes or complex surfaces. It is the industry’s only solution that seamlessly integrates the most advanced, easy-to-use, flexible tools for performing freeform design, with a leading CAD/CAM/CAE software package. As a result, companies producing a wide variety of consumer products – as well as those in the aerospace, medical and marine industries – can shorten product development time by eliminating the multiple steps associated with using separate tools for freeform design and engineering development.
Hundreds of additional enhancements throughout NX 9 touch every aspect of CAD, CAM and CAE. The introduction of 4GD, a new design and data management paradigm that enables versatile and efficient methods for collaboration and design-in-context, accelerates the development of complex large-scale products containing millions of components. The embedding of Active Workspace 2.0, the innovative new interface to Siemens’ Teamcenter® software, enables NX 9 users to quickly find relevant information – parts, tasks, workflows, requirements and specifications – even from multiple external data sources.
New NX CAE tools improve thermal simulation of aircraft engines, reducing the time to setup complex boundary conditions by 75 percent. A new NX CAE parallel thermal solver provides improved performance on large-scale models delivering faster results. Enhancements in NX Nastran® software, the premier FEA solver for computational performance, accuracy, and scalability, enable noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) simulation times to be cut in half.
New capabilities in NX for manufacturing provide enhanced control for faster and more flexible CAM and CMM programming. For die/mold machining, the new cut region management capability provides graphical user interaction for more efficient programming, up to 40 percent faster for some complex parts, and precise control over machining strategies. The new multiple-part programming capability lets programmers reuse machining sequences across any number of similar parts in a setup. For example, a setup with six identical parts can be programmed up to four times faster. The new MRL Connect for NX, connects NX CAM directly to the Manufacturing Resource Library (MRL) in Teamcenter to give programmers easy access to a shared library of standard tools, fixtures, and templates. The CMM Inspection Programming capabilities have been expanded beyond solids to support sheet metal parts, delivering manufacturers in the aerospace and defense, high tech electronics, and automotive industries a highly automated inspection programming solution.
NX 9 is available immediately. For more detailed information on all the new functionality in NX 9, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/nx9.
Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with seven million licensed seats and more than 71,000 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM Software works collaboratively with companies to deliver open solutions to help them make smarter decisions that result in better products. For more information on Siemens PLM Software products and services, visit www.siemens.com/plm.
The Siemens Industry Automation Division (Nuremberg, Germany) supports the entire value chain of its industrial customers – from product design to production and services – with an unmatched combination of automation technology, industrial control technology, and industrial software. With its software solutions, the Division can shorten the time-to-market of new products by up to 50 percent. Industry Automation comprises five Business Units: Industrial Automation Systems, Control Components and Systems Engineering, Sensors and Communications, Siemens PLM Software, and Water Technologies. For more information, visit www.siemens.com/industryautomation.
Note: Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of Siemens AG. NX, NX Realize Shape and Teamcenter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. NASTRAN is a registered trademark of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective holders.