NX, formerly known as "unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/ CAM/

CAE CAE may refer to: Organisations Aviation * CAE Aviation, a Luxembourgian aviation services company * CAE Inc. (formerly Canadian Aviation Electronics), a Canadian manufacturer of simulation technologies and training provider * Régional Compagnie A ...

, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both software packages into a single product which became Unigraphics NX or NX. It is used, among other tasks, for: *

Design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

(parametric and direct solid/surface modelling) * Engineering analysis (static; dynamic; electro-magnetic; thermal, using the

finite element method The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat ...

; and fluid, using the finite volume method). *

Manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ...

finished design by using included machining modules. NX is a direct competitor to CATIA, Creo, Autodesk Inventor.

History

1972: United Computing, Inc. releases UNIAPT, one of the world's first end-user CAM products. 1973: The company purchases the Automated Drafting and Machining (ADAM) software code from

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in 1973. The code became a foundation for a product called UNI-GRAPHICS, later sold commercially as Unigraphics in 1975. 1976 McDonnell Douglas Corporation buys United Computing. 1983: UniSolids V1.0 is released, marking the industry's first true interactive Solid Modeling software offering. 1991: During a period of financial difficulties McDonnell Douglas Automation Company (McAuto) sells its commercial services organization, including the Unigraphics organization and product, to EDS which at that time is owned by GM. Unigraphics becomes GM's corporate CAD system. 1992: Over 21,000 seats of Unigraphics are being used worldwide. 1996: Unigraphics V11.0 is released with enhancements in Industrial Design and Modeling including Bridge Surface, Curvature Analysis for Curve and Surfaces, Face Blends, Variable Offset Surface, etc. In the area of Assembly Modeling the new capabilities include Component Filters, Faceted Representations, and Clearance Analysis between multiple Components. A fully integrated Spreadsheet linked to Feature-Based Modeling is also included.. 2002 First release of the new "Next Generation" version of Unigraphics and I-DEAS, called NX, beginning the transition to bring the functionality and capabilities of both Unigraphics and I-DEAS together into a single consolidated product. 2007 Introduction of Synchronous Technology in NX 5. 2011 Release of NX8 on October 17-2011 2013 Release of NX9 (x64 only) on October 14-2013

Release history

Key functions

* Computer-aided design (CAD) (

) **Parametric solid modeling (feature-based and direct modeling) ** Freeform surface modelling, class A surfaces. **

Reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

** Styling and computer-aided industrial design ** Product and manufacturing information (PMI) **Reporting and analytics, verification and validation **Knowledge reuse, including knowledge-based engineering ** Sheet metal design **

Assembly modelling Assembly modeling is a technology and method used by computer-aided design and product visualization computer software systems to handle multiple files that represent components within a product. The components within an assembly are represented a ...

and digital mockup **

Routing Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...

for electrical wiring and mechanical piping * Computer-aided engineering (CAE) (

Simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the ...

) ** Stress analysis /

(FEM) ** Kinematics **

Computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate t ...

(CFD) and thermal analysis *

Computer-aided manufacturing Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) also known as computer-aided modeling or computer-aided machining is the use of software to control machine tools in the manufacturing of work pieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most ...

(CAM) (

) ** Numerical control (NC) programming

Supported operating systems and platforms

NX runs on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

, Microsoft Windows and

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded " ...

. Starting with version 1847, support for Windows versions prior to

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

as well as for macOS was completely removed, and the GUI was removed from the Linux version.

Architecture

NX uses Parasolid for its Geometric modeling kernel and D-Cubed as

Associative engine In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations, which means that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement f ...

for sketcher and assembly constraints as well as using JT (visualization format) for lightweight data and Multi-CAD.

References

Gallery

File:Cad crank.jpg, Cad crank File:Ugs-nx-5-engine-airflow-simulation.jpg, engine airflow simulation * :Screenshots of NX (Unigraphics)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nx (Unigraphics) Computer-aided design software Computer-aided manufacturing software Computer-aided engineering software Product lifecycle management Computer-aided design software for Linux Siemens software products Computer-aided manufacturing software for Linux Computer-aided engineering software for Linux Proprietary commercial software for Linux