New journey, NX time!

[empower]

took almost 3 months to get our manager to pull the trigger, but we finally got 5 seats of NX CAD Mach 3 as well as 1 seat of CAD/CAM with the token system.
been wanting to dive into this for a long time, now the opportunity came
gonna be lovely to have a fully native cad/cam system with dimension driven modeling/sketching!

 

[drcoelho]

Congrats, NX is great!

 

[BugRobotics]

I'm jealous. Looking forward to hearing about your experience.

 

[mhajicek]

Let us know how it goes, and how it compares to what you've used in the past.

 

[jaguar36]

Ugh, Siemens software group is the worst organzation I’ve ever dealt with. I won’t touch NX with a ten foot pole anymore.

 

[gregormarwick]

Ugh, Siemens software group is the worst organzation I’ve ever dealt with. I won’t touch NX with a ten foot pole anymore.

Elaborate?

 

[CAMasochism]

gonna be lovely to have a fully native cad/cam system with dimension driven modeling/sketching!

View attachment 345482

BOOO!!! HISSS!!!! NEW SKETCHER IS GARBAGE!!!

 

[empower]

BOOO!!! HISSS!!!! NEW SKETCHER IS GARBAGE!!!

how so, can you explain?

 

[CAMasochism]

how so, can you explain?

For the way I am used to doing parts and even for the way I think, the new sketcher works ass backwards from the original. I still have the original sketcher enabled as do my co-workers because none of use can stand the new one.

I'll use what I have said in the NX forums as an example. If I draw a box and I geometrically set all of the sides as being perpendicular and of equal length I know it will always remain a square no matter what I do with it. The dimensions do not matter because it is geometrically defined. If I remove the equal length from 2 of the parallel lines and make them equal length to each other I now have a geometrically defined rectangle. It will always be a rectangle. Next if I remove the perpendicular constraints and say that each opposing angle will instead be equal to each other I know that it will be a parallelogram always. With the new sketcher being dimensionally driven even if I draw a square the algorithm it uses may not define it as a square, and the moment I change a dimension I may end up with a rectangle, a parallelogram, or some other shape.

Many of the parts we make use expressions to define them. Being geometrically defined, when we change a dimension every other dimension will move with it to keep things in proportion. When we attempted to update some of our old parts into the new sketch algorithm things often went horribly wrong.

You can use expressions in the new sketcher but it takes more work, more clicks, to get things working.

Other failings include not being able to see the geometric constraints of a curve until you select it, and then you will only see those that specifically apply to that curve. With the old sketcher if you had a curve that was not fully defined it would show arrows to denote that it still had degrees of movement. The new sketcher merely changes the color of the line it says is not fully defined, and as others have brought up this is not good for people who are color blind. These are just a few of the issues we've run into when trying out the new sketcher.


The new sketcher attempts to automate as much as it can even though it is no where near being ready to do so. As noted by others on the Siemens forums, we are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to beta test and de-bug this feature for them.

 

[empower]

For the way I am used to doing parts and even for the way I think, the new sketcher works ass backwards from the original. I still have the original sketcher enabled as do my co-workers because none of use can stand the new one.

I'll use what I have said in the NX forums as an example. If I draw a box and I geometrically set all of the sides as being perpendicular and of equal length I know it will always remain a square no matter what I do with it. The dimensions do not matter because it is geometrically defined. If I remove the equal length from 2 of the parallel lines and make them equal length to each other I now have a geometrically defined rectangle. It will always be a rectangle. Next if I remove the perpendicular constraints and say that each opposing angle will instead be equal to each other I know that it will be a parallelogram always. With the new sketcher being dimensionally driven even if I draw a square the algorithm it uses may not define it as a square, and the moment I change a dimension I may end up with a rectangle, a parallelogram, or some other shape.

Many of the parts we make use expressions to define them. Being geometrically defined, when we change a dimension every other dimension will move with it to keep things in proportion. When we attempted to update some of our old parts into the new sketch algorithm things often went horribly wrong.

You can use expressions in the new sketcher but it takes more work, more clicks, to get things working.

Other failings include not being able to see the geometric constraints of a curve until you select it, and then you will only see those that specifically apply to that curve. With the old sketcher if you had a curve that was not fully defined it would show arrows to denote that it still had degrees of movement. The new sketcher merely changes the color of the line it says is not fully defined, and as others have brought up this is not good for people who are color blind. These are just a few of the issues we've run into when trying out the new sketcher.


The new sketcher attempts to automate as much as it can even though it is no where near being ready to do so. As noted by others on the Siemens forums, we are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to beta test and de-bug this feature for them.

thank you for a very well written out response. that doesnt sound ideal for sure, i'll have to talk to our VAR about it and see what options we have.

 

[CNC Hacker]

I didn't like the new style sketcher at first either. When I switched from NX12 to the newer releases, I watched some video tutorials that explained how the workflow works and after playing around/understanding it better I actually like it better now.

 

[empower]

I didn't like the new style sketcher at first either. When I switched from NX12 to the newer releases, I watched some video tutorials that explained how the workflow works and after playing around/understanding it better I actually like it better now.

that was my first guess, that there might be a completely different approach/workflow that we'd have to learn.

 

[DDoug]

that was my first guess, that there might be a completely different approach/workflow that we'd have to learn.

But why ?
Everyone dance to the left, now everyone to the right....

 

[empower]

But why ?
Everyone dance to the left, now everyone to the right....

i cant answer what i dont know. once i find out i'll be able to make a decision wether its good or not.
could be a matter of something that we dont know is better until we try it?

 

[CAMasochism]

i cant answer what i dont know. once i find out i'll be able to make a decision wether its good or not.
could be a matter of something that we dont know is better until we try it?

That's what they keep saying about the metric system! BUT WE KNOW BETTER!!!

 

[empower]

That's what they keep saying about the metric system! BUT WE KNOW BETTER!!!

HAH!
thats a battle i fight every day. having been born in europe, i like metric a lot more, but i'm way more familiar with standard... UGHH

 

[dcsipo]

For the way I am used to doing parts and even for the way I think, the new sketcher works ass backwards from the original. I still have the original sketcher enabled as do my co-workers because none of use can stand the new one.

I'll use what I have said in the NX forums as an example. If I draw a box and I geometrically set all of the sides as being perpendicular and of equal length I know it will always remain a square no matter what I do with it. The dimensions do not matter because it is geometrically defined. If I remove the equal length from 2 of the parallel lines and make them equal length to each other I now have a geometrically defined rectangle. It will always be a rectangle. Next if I remove the perpendicular constraints and say that each opposing angle will instead be equal to each other I know that it will be a parallelogram always. With the new sketcher being dimensionally driven even if I draw a square the algorithm it uses may not define it as a square, and the moment I change a dimension I may end up with a rectangle, a parallelogram, or some other shape.

Many of the parts we make use expressions to define them. Being geometrically defined, when we change a dimension every other dimension will move with it to keep things in proportion. When we attempted to update some of our old parts into the new sketch algorithm things often went horribly wrong.

You can use expressions in the new sketcher but it takes more work, more clicks, to get things working.

Other failings include not being able to see the geometric constraints of a curve until you select it, and then you will only see those that specifically apply to that curve. With the old sketcher if you had a curve that was not fully defined it would show arrows to denote that it still had degrees of movement. The new sketcher merely changes the color of the line it says is not fully defined, and as others have brought up this is not good for people who are color blind. These are just a few of the issues we've run into when trying out the new sketcher.


The new sketcher attempts to automate as much as it can even though it is no where near being ready to do so. As noted by others on the Siemens forums, we are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to beta test and de-bug this feature for them.

Don't you just love it when a company finally hires a UX person who disagrees with the old ways? Seriously seems like there is a philosophical change NX went through. Would it make sense to enroll your staff in training? I am very familiar with Siemens' past slogan "Precision thinking", raising the question: what the heck were they thinking?

 

[gkoenig]

Running a CAD/CAM product is a Kobayashi Maru. You don't push stuff forward and you become SolidWorks; stale and only living off of the flywheel momentum of being the standard across everyone who isn't a F500 size business. Or you do what the NX team is trying to do and push fundamental technologies in the field, and the user base goes up in arms (often for good reason!) and accuses you of being a dumdum.

I was only an NX user for a year before the new sketcher came out, and I switched to it immediately because I have no muscle memory of the old one. I get why the old-hands hate it, but like... until Siemens removes the Legacy Sketcher feature flag, IDK what there is to complain about? You can keep using the old one while the NX team starts rolling real-world feedback into the new one - they have said that there are no date to remove the Legacy Sketcher and they are going to make sure most everyone is happy before they do.

Steven Marjieh is starting to post videos about the new sketcher and has a bunch of good tips (hint: turn on Create Persistent Relations to get that old dumb feel back). He seems to like the new one, which is saying a lot given he has probably the broadest CAD experience range of anyone who talks about this stuff publicly.

Siemens NX - YouTube

 

[empower]

Running a CAD/CAM product is a Kobayashi Maru. You don't push stuff forward and you become SolidWorks; stale and only living off of the flywheel momentum of being the standard across everyone who isn't a F500 size business. Or you do what the NX team is trying to do and push fundamental technologies in the field, and the user base goes up in arms (often for good reason!) and accuses you of being a dumdum.

I was only an NX user for a year before the new sketcher came out, and I switched to it immediately because I have no muscle memory of the old one. I get why the old-hands hate it, but like... until Siemens removes the Legacy Sketcher feature flag, IDK what there is to complain about? You can keep using the old one while the NX team starts rolling real-world feedback into the new one - they have said that there are no date to remove the Legacy Sketcher and they are going to make sure most everyone is happy before they do.

Steven Marjieh is starting to post videos about the new sketcher and has a bunch of good tips (hint: turn on Create Persistent Relations to get that old dumb feel back). He seems to like the new one, which is saying a lot given he has probably the broadest CAD experience range of anyone who talks about this stuff publicly.

Siemens NX - YouTube

good stuff! thanks for the tips.