Help:NX

NX is the CAD/CAM product resulting from the merge of unigraphics and SDRC.

Vendor homepage

http://www.ugs.com/index.shtml

Software homepage

http://www.ugs.com/products/nx/

Software availability

Windows (on request)

Available to students in any department

Available on the UCF app server

Other related software

NX Nastran, Category:CAD

command to type to run

ugmenu

ugii

View online documentation

NX7.5 documentation

NX8 documentation

EML4535 course notes by Dr. Zarda

Location of example files

Dr. Zarda's tutorials

Additional notes

See also Siemens licensing for licensing and usage terms.

• To get a license, on campus you must connect to UCF_WPA2 (not GUEST) For off campus use, you must be connected to the VPN.
• If you are unable to get NX installed on your computer, or your computer is too slow to run it, try it on the UCF apps server.

Student personal hardware

• NX can be installed on student hardware, but we must install it. NO MEDIA CAN BE GIVEN OUT FOR REMOTE INSTALLS. You must bring your hardware to us to have the software installed. If you want it on a desktop, we can make it easier to bring it in if you make an appointment.
• The software is only fully featured in Microsoft Windows. If you have a Mac, it will work if you have Windows through Bootcamp or VMWare or Parallels.
• Laptops from 2011 or older may have video card compatibility issues. Check below for details.
• Before bringing in your system, please make sure that you have applied Windows Updates. Pending updates (and occasionally viruses) can interfere with the software installation and may double or triple the install time.
• The install typically takes 30 minutes on newer machines and up to an hour and a half on very old machines.

display issues

First, make sure that your graphics driver is the most recent available.

Try these:

• Preferences -> Visualization Performance -> General Graphics -> Evaluate Graphics Performance
• View -> Camera -> Edit... -> Fit Planes to Extents -> OK, then perform a fit operation
• Play with settings in preferences -> Visualization performance -> general graphics

Supported video cards

UGS classifies video cards as either "certified" (meaning, they've tested it directly) or not. Check the Hardware Certification List to see if your card is listed. However, even with certified cards, the correct version of the video driver is required, as listed. Uncertified cards might work, or might work with problems, or might be slow or just not well tested.

Additionally, they specifically list unsupported cards, which they will not support, because they consider them "low end gamer cards", although some seem to work ok anyway:

• nVidia: GeForce, nForce, and Quadro NVS
• ATI: Radeon

A few other cards are known to be broken, and have known problems:

• Intel HD [1] This is an integrated video included in Intel Sandybridge cpus from 2011. hd3000 and newer seems to work.

Supported operating systems

• Windows (32 and 64 bit)
• Mac OS X (64 bit only, no CAE support!)
  • Note: About this mac -> more -> Hardware (hardware overview) -> Processor Name : Intel Core 2 Duo or I7
  • Note: Analysis (CAE) portion is not currently suported on OS X, only the CAD portion works
  • NX works fine in windows on Mac using any VM software, such as VMware or Parallels

License bundle issues

• You must be on the UCF network to use NX. This means either the UCF_WPA2 wifi network (if on campus), or the VPN if off campus.
• If you get an error that looks like this:

The UGS_LICENSE_BUNDLE environment variable is either not set or set incorrectly.
Please select File-->Utilities-->Select Bundles to properly set a license bundle or File--> Exit to shut down NX.

You can try following the directions in the error to use the GUI to select license bundles. If this does not work or does not save, it can be manually set by loading the ugsbundles.reg patch or:

1. edit your system environment variables (my computer -> properties -> advanced -> Environment Variables)
2. Under System Variables, click New.
3. For Variable name type UGS_LICENSE_BUNDLE
4. For the Variable value type: ACD30;ACD31

General License issues

If you get an error like this:

This is caused by a problem with your network configuration.

• If you are on campus, make sure you are using the wifi network UCF_WPA2 and not the guest network. See UCF Wireless Network Overview for details.
• If you are off campus make sure you are using the UCF vpn software and have logged in before starting NX. See UCF Private Virtual Network for details.
• If you have hardcoded an external DNS server in your network configuration, remove it and allow your system to get its DNS servers from DHCP.
• If you have antivirus or security software with a DNS proxy feature, turn it off. For example, Avast Secure DNS.
• Some malware also installs a DNS proxy.

You can test for a DNS proxy by opening a command window and typing the following commands: (use nslookup to get the address of burke.mmae.ucf.edu)

C:\> nslookup
Default server: 10.171.12.5
> burke.mmae.ucf.edu
Name:   burke.mmae.ucf.edu
Address: 10.173.212.45

The address should be as above. If you get instead 132.170.218.37 then you are using an external DNS server instead of UCF's internal servers. If you get an address other than these two, then you probably have malware installed.