NX (student edition) impressions

NX
1

I’ve been using ‘Solid Edge Community edition’ for a while now, and I am fairly comfortable with it.
It does everything I need and more :slight_smile:
But, I was always curious about NX, what the ‘hype’ is about, so I got NX student edition (2412.3001 is the latest available) to play with.

TBH, I wasn’t really sure it will even work on my potato desktop, but it does, surprisingly OK-ish.
I’ve been using ‘welcome’ or ‘essentials’ roles most of the time, but I tried ‘advanced’, just to see what it is.
Oh boy. So many toys…er…tools to play with.

It was interesting trying to model some stuff I previously did in SE
(NX sketcher requires some time getting used to), but I, somehow, picked up
the very basics fairly quickly, which surprised me a bit (I am not that smart).
Reading the documentation and trying some exercises from there surely helped with that.

BTW, if anyone has a design/modelling-oriented role, so NX UI is a little less intimidating/overwhelming to mere mortals,
feel free to share :slight_smile:

‘Algorithmic feature’ reminds me of Blender’s ‘Geometry Nodes’, which are great fun to play/experiment with, but not covered
by license.
"designvisionaries’ yt channel has some neat stuff using it, fwiw.

Speaking of licensing, there was a little confusion on my part about that.
‘Student edition’ license is valid for a year, but text file along the download states that it expires in January 2026,
but, based on the e-mail I got, the clock started the day I installed NX, so the license expires sometime in March 2026.
Not really that big of a deal, since, when NX 2506 drops, build of that should be available as student edition.
That’s how I interpret “student edition will be updated when NX major version is released”, anyway.

All in all, I get why folks swear by NX, and why it’s used by Apple, Airbus, SpaceX etc.
It’s a lot of power.
Solid Edge CE will remain my ‘main’ CAD, and I’ll keep NX SE around to play with, I am curious about its pattern tools, for example.

2 Likes
2

I am a former UG/NX user (v17 to NX 8.5 back in the days) then I had to switch to Solidworks.
While Siemens has a very good product they are not very good at communication and PR imho. Student editions and community editions should have a more clear terms of use, what is allowed and what is not understandable by all.

My understanding is that community edition is for no-profit hobby like use, while student for education. I would like to know if student edition could be used by people like me that wants to keep up with an old tool in their spare time, without having to resort to piracy or ask to use job tools which could be a liability.
Is it correct to assume an employee could use a student edition of NX to “self teach” and renew it annually?

3

AFAICT, the idea behind student version of NX is that students that have access
to Academic version, which is full-feautured AFAIK but can only be used on-site,
can install student edition on their own machines, for homework assignments, self-training, their own projects etc.
Student edition only exports STL’s, FWIW, and, IIRC, parts designed with it can
only be opened in Academic version of NX.
NX SE is also for life-long learners, according to the site, so :slight_smile:

1 Like