Sounds like Solid Edge and Inventor are closer in these behaviors. Drawings in SW feel like a big step backwards for us coming from SE.
Concerning seeing the built model while editing an earlier sketch, unless the software does an excellent job of automatic selection filters so that downstream geometry/bodies/surfaces/sketches are not selectable I can see that being a disaster. I have not had opportunity to use NX but from what I’ve heard it probably implemented this in a way to prevent the bumbling user from creating relations from the sketch to downstream geometry. I still struggle with this concept in an ordered environment though; maybe if I’ve used it I would love it.
You can’t pick the downstream geometry, it won’t highlight when you pass the cursor over it, etc. When I started with NX, I would sometimes go nuts trying to figure out why some things just weren’t pickable, until I would realize – that’s the Ghost of Geometry Yet-to-Come, d’oh. (Probably a natural learning stage coming from systems that force rollback.)
Like I said in an earlier post, I wish the implementation was more elegant, maybe like showing downstream geometry in some other line font or color. But it doesn’t take much to get used to as is.
NX calls the direct editing tools “synchronous modeling”, but I think that this is just a marketing confluence to SE. Each “synchronous” operation adds a feature to a good old history tree, so it really is an “ordered” environment. There was a “history-free” mode a while back that was kinda like the SE synchronous environment, but it got killed off around NX10, apparently it wasn’t well-received. I’ve seen rumors on the Siemens forums that it might come back though.
That does sound nice. Most of what I’ve heard about NX is that most of the features/behavior is polished to a nice finish vs “If it kinda functions ship it.” mentality.
The only time I remember crashing NX was in the Nastran simulation. The modelling side was VERY robust (circa 2016). That’s not to say it didn’t have its glitches, but it makes a SW SP5 release look like a beta project. Maybe if you want that kind of stability you have to pay NX kind of pricing.
Am I correct in remembering that you can reference dimensions downstream? Not geometry, but the sketches that drive the geometry?
yes, I’ve often thought that the high price of NX is driven by the consistent high quality level of the software engineering. It’s not always perfect but it’s definitely more dependable than what the others are doing.
Am I correct in remembering that you can reference dimensions downstream? Not geometry, but the sketches that drive the geometry?
Every driving dimension is given a parameter name that can be directly typed in at any prompt which would require compatible input (much more convenient than needing to go into a list every time). One peculiarity in NX is that you cannot re-use the values of driven dimensions (as opposed to e.g. SW, where you can use driven dimensions in equations). In NX, you need to do a separate “measure” feature, from which the output then can be used further.
That should work without having Instant 3D on. Just double-click a sketch or feature in the tree and dimensions should appear on screen. You can double-click and edit the dimensions in the dialog box. If you click the green checkmark you exit without immediate updating of the dim. Edit more dim’s if you want to, either in the same sketch/feature or a different one. If you click the stoplight, the dimension and any others you’ve changed will update, but you don’t exit the dialog box you’re in until you click the green checkmark. I find it safer to rebuild with each dimension change.
Yes, but with instant3D on there is instant change as you change the dimension. With instant3D off, you have to hit the stoplight or CTRL Q to see the updates.
Most of the time rebuilding to check that the change doesn’t cause any unexpected changes before exiting the dialog box takes practically no time and only costs you one click. If something unexpected happens you can catch it right away. Making many changes and then rebuilding makes it harder to figure out what went wrong if a mix-up or typo you made (we all do it) somewhere in the course of changing all those dimensions causes an error.
On a big complicated model that takes ages to rebuild, it makes more sense to get many dimensions changed at once and then rebuild in one go. On the other hand sometimes those are the models best modified one step at a time.