Unigraphics Latest Version
Jacinda Saleeby
NX, formerly known as "Unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/CAE, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software.[1][2] In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both software packages into a single product which became Unigraphics NX or NX.
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.[3] Unigraphics becomes GM's corporate CAD system.
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.
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)[37] for lightweight data and Multi-CAD.
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Siemens NX 2212 Series Student Edition was released on 2023-02-21, its license is almost finished as freudphys comments. Are any NX support team that could, please, answer if it will be a Siemens NX 2306 Series Student Edition and its release day? Thanks.
In my country, University Classes begin at the first days of January and at the first days of August.
When in 2022 NX Professional and Academic Series was released on June and December I was very happy (that the series number now seems to has a significance and) that the newest Academic Version of Siemens NX could be installed in Universities for the use of the students. But, particularly this semester, the NX 2306 Series Student Edition has not been released yet, resulting (because the incompatibility between 2212 and 2306 series) in the inability to do student homework (without a VPN or an Remote Desktop Software Tool). Autumn semester is almost finished and after this experience my recommendation for future semesters, to Academics in similar situation of limited use of VPN, is do not update to the newest Academic Version until same Student Edition of NX has been released and has in mind a quick midterm update.
I really wish more compatibility between NX releases in future, at least with the previous series version.
Thanks to Siemens PLM for the extraordinary effort releasing free students versions of NX on COVID 19 pandemic time. With the earnest desire Siemens NX Student Edition continues free for the Students in Universities with Academic Licenses.
@edwhow
Since staff having previous version can not open 2306 series files and Student Edition can not export a PFD or Screen Image good enough to read it, the only thing in my mind to review the degree of performance of the skills acquired for the students is that faculty generate examples of parts and drawings with controlled geometrical and drawing-standards errors and let students use the NX Analysis tools and ANSI/ISO Standards in order to find, compute, discuss and propose solutions to the errors. But only in the short period of time staff updates to the same version than students.
Trying to download the student edition and it wants me to update account info like company and phone number. When I go to save it throughs and error and will not save, So I cannot proceed with down load. Any Idea what I can do so I can start trying NX?
In 1960 McDonnell decided to utilize this experience and enter the computer services business. Its McAuto subsidiary was established that year with 258 employees and $7 million in computer hardware. Fifteen years later, McAuto had become one of the largest computer services organizations in the world with over 3,500 employees and a computer infrastructure worth over $170 million. It continued to grow for the next decade, reaching over $1 billion in revenue and 14,000 employees by 1985. Its largest single customer during of this period was the military aircraft design group of its own parent company.
A significant project during the 1960s and 1970s was the development of an inhouse CAD/CAM system to support McDonnell engineering. Known as CADD (Computer Aided Design and Drafting), it was first implemented on an IBM 360/40 computer equipped with an IBM 2250 display terminal starting around 1966. In 1967, McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft merged to form McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC)[2].
Clients could use FASTDRAW to build a model, submit it for analysis using programs such as ANSYS or MSC NASTRAN and then view the results. Eventually, this program was ported to Digital VAX computers and sold as an adjunct to Unigraphics. The president of McAuto in the early 1980s was Joe Quakenbush and John Clancy was the vice president in charge of the Unigraphics activity. In February 1983, Robert Fischer, the former president of National CSS, becomes president of McAuto replacing Quackenbush who retired due to health reasons. Clancy became vice president for Industry/Product Management.
United Computing was founded in 1963 by John Wright and several associates. Their first two-room office was above a hairdresser in Torrance, California. Within a few years the company moved a few miles away to Carson. The new facility had previously been a post office and occasionally people would come looking to buy stamps or mail a package.
UNIAPT was one of the first NC programming systems sold directly to end users. Previously, most companies created their NC programs using time-sharing services provided by large providers such as McAuto and UCC (University Computing Corporation). The UNIAPT software followed basic APT principals fairly closely. APT commands were entered via a keyboard and there was no graphic feedback as we know it today. The system did have the ability to plot results, however. Moderately complex surfaces could be machined using an optional module called USURF.
The software, UNI-GRAPHICS, was introduced in October 1973 at the Society of Manufacturing Engineers CAD/CAM II show at the Hilton Hotel in Detroit. These shows were the forerunners of what eventually became AUTOFACT. The software provided basic two-dimensional modeling and drafting capabilities. The company promoted this new software as a graphical front-end to UNIAPT. United had just six programmers working on the development of UNI-GRAPHICS at the time.
The typical configuration in addition to the SPC-16 minicomputer included either a Tektronix 4010 or 4014 terminal, an alphanumeric display for commands and messages, a 32-button program function keyboard, a tablet and stylus and a Tektronix 4631 hardcopy unit. Cursor control on the Tektronix terminal was typically with a pair of thumbwheel switches or joystick if the tablet was not used. A multi-user version of the software was introduced in August 1974 on the General Automation SPC-16/65 and the package was renamed Unigraphics without the hyphen.
Starting in 1976, McDonnell Douglas and the subsequent owners of Unigraphics continued to enhance this core software product and the vast suite of applications built on top of it. One of the first major enhancements was the addition of a user programming language, GRIP (GRaphics Interactive Programming language). Although the basic code for this capability was included in the ADAM software United licensed from MCS, it required considerable software effort to make it work effectively. Over the years, GRIP would be one of the key features along with its NC capabilities that distinguished Unigraphics from its competitors.
When McAuto acquired United Computing, one of the major problems was that Unigraphics ran on General Automation computers. These were not popular with most engineering organizations and McAuto began shipping a Data General Eclipse version in June 1976. The company had been delivering UNIAPT on smaller Data General Nova systems for some time as well as on Digital PDP-8s. Although Data General had a realtime operating system, RDOS, United developed its own operating system, TSS (Time Slicing System), which permitted multiple users to run independent sessions of Unigraphics. The company felt the need to do this since RDOS only allowed a single process to be running at any one time. The Data General version of Unigraphics was followed by a Digital PDP-11/70 implementation in early 1977.
In March, 1977, the company was successful in marketing Unigraphics internationally. Baker Perkins Ltd, of Peterbrough, England, a manufacturer of food processing equipment, purchased a four seat Unigraphics system. The software ran on a Data General S200 with 128KB of main memory, a 96MB removable disk drive, a 9track magnetic tape backup system, a paper tape punch/reader and a Calcomp 960 plotter. The complete system including the Unigraphics software sold for over $400,000. The S200 computer required an air conditioned room for the CPU and disk drive and the Tektronix terminals required controlled lighting for the users.
Unigraphics development under the new McAuto management picked up momentum during 1980. In September, Version D2 was released with a viewindependent coordinate system as well as new NC and geometry editing modules including the ability to create and edit sculptured surfaces. This version also saw the introduction of a finite element modeling module called GFEM. From this point forward, Unigraphics was an effective three-dimensional design and manufacturing system.[5] A maintenance release, D2.1 came out in February 1981 with support for the Digital VAX computer. The company announced that it would also support Data General 32-bit systems. The next release, D3.0, in April 1982, was the first Unigraphics software that supported raster displays and color (up to seven different colors).