Live from Boston (again) - NX6 Launch
OK, let’s do this one more time. For the next 90 minutes, this entry will be updated live as the NX6 launch presentation progresses.
8:45 AM Paul Brown takes the stage and introduces the key attributes of NX6 that give greater powers to a user and an organization.
8:48 AM Design Freedom, introduced with NX5, is now being fortified with Synchronous Technology to further extend the ability to maintain design intent when the model needs to be changed, build models for simulation and enable the user to control the toolpath directly for better machining results.
8:51 AM First demo: greater flexibility for high tech electronics. Demo part is a thermal camera from The Alloy. (Cool – these are live demos!). Designing the battery compartment.
8:55 AM Showing UI improvements including full screen mode, toolbars that pop up near the pointer. Now showing ease of model changes using Design Freedom with Synchronous Technology.
8:57 AM Now showing active selection which automatically recognizes symmetry in parts and selects elements based on that symmetry.
8:59 AM Now switching over to meshing tools and building finite element model and boundary conditions.
9:00 AM First demo finished. Now moving on to next point: how to get better productivity through re-use. “How can you get the most value from geometry regardless of where it comes from.”
9:07 AM “Re-use has been mostly focused on part geometry, but in NX6 we are focusing on enabling real re-use for assemblies, simulation and machining.
9:09 AM Second demo starting up (Live again – yeah!). Demo part this time is a seat from a commercial tractor that needs to be ‘strengthened to account for heavier farmers that use the arm to actually get in the tractor’. (Paul must hang out in my neck of the woods).
9:12 AM Creating mid-surface of all geometry and adding shell element mesh. Looking at mesh quality and splitting some faces where elements had bad aspect ratios. Looking at results using display templates
9:14 AM Now switching to tooling demo using different part from same tractor.
9:15 AM Acting as a manufacturing engineer now, the part is being defeatured using Design Freedom with Synchronous Technology – dropping off features that won’t have any impact on tool path. Now showing re-use by starting with tool path that was generated for similar part earlier as start.
9:18 AM Now switching back to arm geometry to show some more editing capabilities. Edits of parts that have no history, but relationships are inferred which makes changes quicker.
9:20 AM Second demo complete. Now moving on to third point: how to get greater coordination by closely coupling NX and Teamcenter to enable discipline specific views of product data
9:23 AM Setting up demo focused on sharing manufacturing information throughout the organization using new capabilities of PMI Driven Machining
9:26 AM Third demo starting now focused on collaboration starting using a roof tile machine.
9:29 AM Showing product template studio module to quickly update model based on pre-defined product definition templates.
9:31 AM now doing motion simulation. Amazing that the differences between small scale kinematic simulations and full scale (but usually coarse) factory simulations are gone. You can simulate big models in hi resolution.
9:32 AM now transferring loads from kinematic analysis to structural analysis. The bearing on the end of one of the arms will fail, so now using Geolus shape search to find a part that is similar in shape, but larger in size eliminating the need to design something new from scratch and reducing duplicate parts.
9:34 AM now switching to machining demo that is using the PMI info applied by designer to automatically develop tool path based on specified surface finishes and tolerances.
9:35 AM 3rd demo finishing up. Setting up forth point about …wait a minute a little interruption from CAD Man, this time as a Hippie…guess he is CAD Dude now.
9:36 AM OK, back to the presentation. Focus is being able to solve the toughest problems in manufacturing, whether it be design, analysis or machining.
9:40 AM Fourth demo starting showing the ability to solve really hard problems in aerospace, using a turbofan model. “Get 80% of the way there using templates and then finish up using complete tool set and engineering knowledge”
9:41 AM Showing product template studio again to get base geometry built using pre-defined design rules.
9:44 AM Now that ‘the 80%’ geometry is done, doing some additional direct edits and setting up model for analysis.
9:46 AM Moving to machining now, once agin showing re-use of existing knowledge to quickly create tool path information. Using a manufacturing studio wizard that asks some simple questions to conform to best practice and get cutting information created quickly and then simulate how machining run will actually work.
9:48 AM 4th demo wrapped up. Moving to fifth point around making decisions with greater confidence.
9:50 AM Lots of time invested in making sure that each new version is directly compatible with previous versions. Additional time has been invested in making sure I-deas information can be brought forward as well.
9:52 AM Short video from UMBRA Group on their use of NX CAD products.
9:54 AM Fifth demo starting. Lights going down and CAD Man charging on to stage again…trying to sabotage demo. Seems he has brought an escape artist this time. Making point about escaping from old ways of doing things and being over constrained.
9:57 AM That was pretty cool. Must be twins (sorry have to see it…no way to describe)
