Fixing the NX 7.5 Issue

If you are running NX 7.5 on a MacBook or MacBook Pro and run into a licensing problem and get the same error message Deelip did–”The proper license does not exist. The USG_LICENSE_BUNDLE environment variable is either not set or set incorrectly”–don’t panic.

For NX licensing FLEXnet relies on the use of the hostname to locate the server. If you are running a MacBook on say your home network its hostname may be self-assigned mac1.local. When you move it to say a company network (eg: apple.com) the host name for the MacBook will change to mac1.apple.com, thereby confusing the FLEXnet software.

Deelip’s fix is to install the license server on a workstation or server that has a stable domain. Apparently it is recommended that a central license server be used for all client domains. The second fix option is to use the local IP address (127.0.0.1) for the hostname.

You can read more details on this NX Mac issue fix here.

This has meant that the demand for more native Mac software has also grown several fold and that there is now very strong and growing demand for engineering and CAD software on the platform, complimenting the already existent and strong penetration of native design software for Apple’s easy-to-use UNIX-based system.

Within this context we have seen German industrial giant Siemens and its PLM software division fully commit resources to, and produce, a shipping version of its market-leading PLM software NX 6 for Mac OS X. In this interview Architosh talks to Paul Brown, senior director of NX Marketing for Siemens PLM Software and Jim Phelan, Director of PLM Media Relations. We start this discussion with a description of what constitutes NX 6 for the Mac.

The Interview

Anthony Frausto-Robledo (AFR): Paul thanks for taking the time to speak to me this morning. Let’s start from the beginning. What encompasses the NX 6 version for the Mac?

Paul Brown (PB): Sure. NX 6 for Mac includes all the core CAD/CAM technology found in the other platform versions, this means all the modeling and drafting functionality and all the assembly and collaboration tools…and of course the Synchronous Technology that has been much praised by the industry.

Jim Phelan (JP): Anthony are you familiar with our Synchronous Technology in NX?

AFR: Yes, I’ve written about it and have a general understanding. I understand it is a way to mix both parametric, history-based modeling functionality with aspects of explicit modeling. Is that correct?

PB: Yes, more or less.

AFR: I’d like to talk about that in more detail in a second. So the Mac version is more or less identical to the other platforms for NX?

PB: Almost. The Mac version doesn’t have the CAE (computer-aided engineering) items, the finite element analysis and engineering tools.

AF: Is that because the demand isn’t there for the most part or a porting issue?

PB: The demand. The analysis types are interested in other platforms like Linux for instance, where they can batch off big stuff to cost-effective Linux clusters where they can focus on pure performance while doing their engineering analyses.

AFR: So the demand was really there only on the “product design” side, is that correct?

PB: NX has a history of serving multiple platforms and so it made sense for us to add the Mac. There is growing interest among our customers with the Mac, especially on the front-end design side. And we are already seeing interest in the Macs being utilized for engineering workstations. In fact, last week we heard news of the first new large commercial deployment on the Mac. We found that delightful because it expands our base.

01 - Siemens PLM's NX 6 Mac shown here running on one of Apple's latest laptops.

AFR: Right, I assume besides making your existing customers happy a big point of the Mac version is to expand your base and increase revenue?

PB: That is right. We don’t make any more money when our customers simply move to other hardware.

AFR: And speaking of revenue, what does a single NX license cost?

PB: Ranges start around 7,500.USD per seat. Things go up from there based on adding modules. Costs vary with modules and deployment size (number of seats).

AF: And what are some of the modules that can be added to the Mac version of NX?

PB: Nearly all the modules can be added except for the CAE (computer-aided engineering) modules. Some of the modules include the PTS, which is the Product Template Studio, CheckMate, and various other modules that add things like mark-up, etc cetera.

AFR: Do people use NX for industrial design or do they use other tools like AliasStudio and solidThinking and then bring that data into NX for final work?

PB: It depends on the end state of design. For some industrial designers the end state is a pretty rendered picture that comes out of their workflow and design tool. If that is the case, that is best served in another package. We are stronger when the end state is moving that industrial designed object straight into mechanical design and engineering. In this way ID (industrial design) and Mechanical engineering can be tied in much closer.

AFR: What percentage of pure industrial design happens inside NX?

PB: Quite a lot. We have many larger customers who do all their industrial design exclusively within NX. NX has all the tools they need and they can do the beautiful renderings as well.

AF: I know for instance that SolidWorks licensed Luxology’s modo technology to add powerful state-of-the-art rendering and animation technology into the SolidWorks workflow. How do you accomplish your photo-realistic rendering technology?

PB: We have a partner in LightWork Design and use their LightWorks rendering engine.

AFR: I have noticed that even in this latest version of NX 6 for Mac you are using a standard X11 interface on Mac OS X. Why are you not using a native Aqua Mac OS X UI?

PB: This is certainly not a true Cocoa app and we don’t use the native user interface technology because doing so would have amounted to a massive reworking of the code.

Jim Phelan (JP): Plus, we have to factor in our product in larger heterogenous environments and our customers don’t want to have different UI’s across a range of platforms. So we use the common user interface for all platforms.

AFR: So this means even Windows gets the common interface?

PB: Yes. We have lots of large customers and in large heterogeneous environements it is important for the IT staff supporting NX to be able to know and work with one common user interface.

AFR: And TeamCenter utilizes the Apple Safari web browser, correct?

PB: Yes, not all of TeamCenter runs on the Mac but most of it.

AFR: You mentioned large customers several times. Can you tell me if you have any large customers who are utilizing the Mac version of NX 6 and can you mention any names?

We’ve been saying that at Architosh for ten years Ken!

Next Generation Want CAD on Mac

But as I have been expressing privately to many of the CAD industry leaders who are already on the Mac for years now, it is the next-generation of young designers who will be putting the pressure on the switch over to the Mac platform. So I was pleased to read this quote in full here. Marc Chapin posted this at Desktop Engineering:

“The next generation of design students who are growing up with the Mac now will be looking for trusted CAD solutions for that platform, regardless of the aging CAD population who use Windows/Linux. The first big CAD provider who jumps onto the Mac platform, regardless of the huge expense, will reap the rewards of being the first to enter that market and will receive the greatest financial payback.”

Marc then writes…

“I am a young industrial designer (5 years experience) and use SolidWorks on Windows XP 64 and am considering NX 6 on a new Mac. I think that if any one of the mid range priced CAD modelers like SolidWorks, ProE, SolidEdge, or Inventor were to port to the Mac platform, they would instantly reap financial rewards from people like me. Just my 2 cents.” 

NX 6 on Mac Articles and Video

While Architosh just recently posted a story on the official release of NX on Mac, there are three separate but related stories and blog posts coming from the main press that covers highend (and PC-only) CAD. 

Kenneth Wong’s article from Desktop Engineering contains the user-feedback quotes we noted above, and the new MacDesign blog by Develop3D magazine online also covers this new story (and with some different graphics) and an interview, and finally there is the SolidSmack post. You can check out some YouTube videos of NX 6 on Mac above and below.

The full computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) functionality of NX, Siemens PLM Software’s flagship digital product development application, now includes the Mac in its list of supported operating environments. 

01 - Siemens' NX software is a full native 64-bit Mac OS X application. It requires an Intel-based Mac (ie: it is not Universal Binary and thus does not run on PowerPC-based Macs).

“We are delighted to add the Mac to the comprehensive list of operating environments supported by our NX CAD/CAM applications,” said Joan Hirsch, vice president of Product Design Solutions, Siemens PLM Software. “Today’s announcement further expands the flexibility of NX and provides customers with the freedom to choose from one of industry’s broadest range of supported operating systems.”

Siemen’s PLM Software’s NX (a descendent of Unigraphics) is used by leading companies around the globe to design and manufacture some of the world’s most innovative and sophisticated products. Its wide adoption throughout the global manufacturing industry is due in part to its ability to support a wide range of operating environments–including Windows, UNIX, and Linux–in a heterogeneous or single operating system deployment. Now Apple’s popular Mac OS X environment–which is UNIX based and has tripled in installed based in the past two years–rounds out NX’s deployment options. 

“NX has been our exclusive CAD/CAM software for several years because of its unmatched ability to handle all of our product design and manufacturing needs,” said Marcel Eggimann of Eggimann Design. “At the same time, we have always preferred the Mac as the system of choice for the work we do. Now we can have the best of both worlds as these two great technologies come together. We have been using NX on Mac OS X for three months now and we are very impressed with its performance and reliability.”

The Mac OS X version of NX includes all of the software’s robust CAD and CAM functionality, as well as support for Siemens PLM Software’s Teamcenter platform through rich client capabilities embedded in NX and the thin client based on Apple’s Safari web browser. As a result, NX for Mac OS X can leverage all the capabilities of Teamcenter, the world’s most widely used PLM portfolio, including its ability to support a multi-platform CAD strategy.

“It’s pretty clear that more and more people are demanding that their primary software tools are available on their operating system of choice,” said Al Dean, Editor in Chief, DEVELOP3D.com. “Siemens PLM Software’s move with NX to Mac OS X should see them gain a foothold in a growing community.”

To learn more about NX for the Mac please visit this website: www.siements.com.plm

What About Murphy’ Law

As usual when coming back from a busy show like the AIA my email inbox rains news press releases in several other industries. Architosh has much to cover in the next few days in order to catchup on several great news announcements, including items from general CAD software companies and even a good item from Filemaker. 

Our AIA news show reports will begin flowing in the next few days as well and go into the next two weeks with some special features from the show. I was fortunate to have many sit-downs at AIA and this caused me to miss out on visiting several smaller software vendors on the show floor. If I didn’t get around to you and your company my apologies. The time went by faster than I imagined. 

Highlights and Trends

The big buzzword at AIA this year was obviously sustainability. And that issue will likely dominate discussion for some time. There was a lot of focus on green design and building a future wherein the profession of architecture takes a leading role in regards to building a sustainable and eco-focused culture. Both Bentley and Graphisoft had announcements in the area of green design. And Autodesk’s booth was popular with sessions on its energy analysis tools. 

The AIA released new AIA documents that continue to march the profession forward towards BIM, which itself is a critical component of building an eco-focused profession. BIM is a necessity in the march towards a greener world with buildings not just because you can do full building simulations and analysis of energy much easier than in 2D tools, but because a large part of energy conservation comes after a building has been erected. With BIM a facilities manager or building owner can more fully monitor, maintain, and operate a building during its complete life-cycle. 

In regards to seeing buildings as objects with a life-cycle that often can outlast an architect’s own life, the emphasis on data produced by the architect is shifting from a world of solely communicating the requirements for construction to a world where you are obligated to communicate information useful to a building’s continued operation. This places the emphasis on 3D geometry so buildings can be “virtualized” for their continued maintenance. 

Because the industry is still wedded to the value of drawing and 2D methods of communication–both required within the creation and the life-cycle management of buildings–a challenge exist to both encourage and help architects move to a 3D world. Google’s SketchUp continues to draw attention to this issue by presenting to the industry a simplified way of learning and mastering 3D architectural and environment creation. However, hot on the tails of Google, legendary formZ software maker auto-des-sys, Inc., has released a rival to SketchUp called Bonzai 3D. Bonzai 3D is a significant milestone in the industry for several reasons.

Firstly, Bonzai 3D offers serious competition in the area of simplified 3D model creation. Competition is good because it keeps companies on their toes, moving the industry forward. Second,  Bonzai 3D offers the industry a direct scalable modeling path. You can start with a simple tool like Bonzai and take that data directly into an advanced NURBS-based modeler like formZ.  It should also be mentioned that Bonzai 3D is technically a NURBS modeler itself, enabling more sophisticated means to the same ends as SketchUp. Lastly, Bonzai 3D is compatible with SketchUp and numerous other 3D and CAD file formats, making it a solid choice for any production pipeline. 

We’ll have more news from AIA coming up!

Parasolid version 21

The new modeling kernel software has recently made news in the Mac computing landscape by being incorporated as the new kernel technology in Nemetschek North America’s globally popular Vectworks 2009 CAD product line, as well as powering the next version of Siemen PLM Software’s NX 6 for Mac.

Siemens PLM Software's Parasolid v21 - leading industrial strength geometry modeling (kernel) component software now powers key CAD and PLM products on the Macintosh (Mac OS X) platform.

Version 21 of Parasolid includes many enhancements to 3D modeling technology capabilities, which will drive enhancements to the more than 350 leading end-user CAD, CAM, CAID, PLM and BIM licensees powering their software solutions with Parasolid. Key areas of improvement include:

• Local operations – Several enhancements have been made to allow significantly more complex changes while performing local edits of geometry. For example, options have been added to automatically indicate desired behavior when features such as holes and bosses interact as the result of a local editing operation.
• Enhanced surface creation – Sophisticated sheet and surface creation and manipulation capabilities have been extended. For example, users can perform sweep operations with enhanced control of rotation as well as with more complex configurations of guide curves. In addition, users can perform loft operations between profiles while twisting along a path.
• Application support – A new diagnostic mechanism has been added and the tools that help application developers track the creation, editing and deletion of entities have been further developed to provide more support for sophisticated undo and rollback algorithms.

For general information on Parasolid, visit this page: http://www.siemens.com/plm.

Now Testing NX 6 for Mac

According to the PLM World e-Newsletter, Siemens is please to announce that customer tests are about to begin for NX 6 on Mac OS X. For the first time, Mac users will be able to take advantage of the world’s most advanced, full-featured PLM (product-life-cycle management) and MCAD product. The newsletter reports: “The Mac has long set the standard for design and innovation in the personal computer market, making it the perfect fit for NX and Teamcenter.” 

NX 6 for Mac will be fully demonstrated at PLM World conference in June of this year, and is scheduled to be released soon after that. 

Synchronous Technology

NX 6 for Mac will include all the same technology as NX 6 on Linux and Windows, including Siemens PLM Software’s leading-edge Synchronous Technology, which combines the best in “history-based” and “explicit modeling” (history-free) to allow even inexperienced users to modify 3D models directly without needing to know how the models were created. 

NX 6 also features a state-of-the-art user interface which is completely customizable. A knowledge-based design tool, NX 6 allows users to capture, manage, and share and apply company knowledge throughout the enterprise organization. 

NX 6 on Mac – Requirements

NX 6 for Mac will run only on current 64-bit Intel-based Mac systems running Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5.5 or later) and it supports all graphic subsets. It will include CAD, CAM, Assemblies and Drafting. Siemens PLM has many customers already signed up to test NX 6 for Mac OS X. Interested NX customers can contact Tom Spangler at tom.spangler@siemens.com

To read our previous NX 6 release for Windows and Linux go here.

aniDemo

The new version of aniDemo is improved to work on both Mac and Windows machines and is now compatible with all major Web browsers, covering more than 99 percent of the Internet today. By using standard web formats no additional plugin or programs are needed. New functionalities include play/pause during running animations and an impressive user interface. 

aniDemo is made for industrial companies that want to boost sales via the improved quality of product demonstrations online. All 3D content is easily created using a highly automated process reusing existing 3D CAD data. This produces a single-sourced, produced compact file from multiple data type inputs. The authoring process is completed in just a few hours.

aniDemo puts 3D CAD content online for better customer interaction.

aniDemo is a standalone product built around the same core technologies as aniDim3nsion and aniPart. Authored materials can be reused across all three platforms. 

Animech Technologies is now looking for agencies interested in providing the aniDemo solution to their customers, or implementing the functionality in their software solutions.

Four Key Innovations in NX 6

• Flexibility – NX 6 provides newfound design freedom with synchronous technology that leverages the ease of direct editing in the model creation process.
• Strength – NX 6 handles extremely complex problems via CAD/CAM/CAE.
• Coordination – NX 6 improves process collaboration, leads to 20 percent faster cycle times through process efficiency
• Productivity – NX 6 provides engineers and designers improvements in productivity leading to 40 percent faster cycle times: leverage multi-CAD data within your design, analysis and manufacturing processes