Developer(s) Siemens PLM Software Available in multi-language | Development status active | |
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Initial release October 1973; 43 years ago (1973-10) Stable release NX 11.0 / July 29, 2016; 7 months ago (2016-07-29) Operating system | ||
NX, formerly known as NX Unigraphics or usually just UG, is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/CAE software package originally developed by Unigraphics, but since 2007 by Siemens PLM Software.
Contents
It is used, among other tasks, for:
NX is a direct competitor to TopSolid, CATIA, Creo, Autodesk Inventor, and SolidWorks.
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 MCS in 1973. The code became a foundation for a product called UNI-GRAPHICS, later sold commercially as Unigraphics in 1975.
1976 McDonnell Douglas Aircraft 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
Key functions
Supported operating systems and platforms
NX runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.
Architecture
NX uses Parasolid for its Geometric modeling kernel and D-Cubed as Associative engine for sketcher and assembly constraints as well as using JT (visualization format) for lightweight data and Multi-CAD.