Siemens PLM Software have now publicly announced the next greatly anticipated version of Solid Edge. This is not called V21 but is “Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology”. This new ground breaking technology is far too revolutionary to just be called Solid Edge V21.
I have just completed my training on this new version and it was great to finally get some hands on experience after seeing so many of the teaser presentations from Siemens PLM. My initial impressions on this latest version are extremely positive. This is some seriously clever technology that is great to use as it gives you a very interactive CAD design experience. It’s easy to see how it will begin to revolutionise the way that we work with our designs and it will allow us to make dramatic design changes very quickly. This is also true regardless of where the data originated. In fact I have looked at a couple of examples where it is much quicker to modify a SolidWorks model imported into Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology rather than in SolidWorks itself. The same applies to data imported from any mainstream CAD system.
Some highlights of Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology include:
- Unified 2D & 3D Environments. Commands for generating the 2D sketch geometry and the subsequent 3D geometry are unified into the same easy to use interface. Eliminating the need to switch between sketching and modelling.
- Create models faster with little or no commands using ‘Grab n Go’ techniques. Simply identify regions and then push / pull them to turn them into 3D.
- Manipulate geometry on the fly with the new ‘Steering Wheel’ controls.
- Add 3D PMI dimensions any where any time and then use them to drive the model.
- Live rules which automatically look for strong geometric conditions and control the model during dynamic edits (using the Steering Wheel or PMI Dimensions). This eliminates the need to add geometric constraints. For example you move a hole that is in the end of a boss and its concentric outer surface is automatically selected to move too – as well as any other tangent or symmetric conditions that may exist.
- Ability to make modifications to parametric features without having the overhead of the models history having to up date as per normal feature based modellers. This means the updates happen instantly.
Don’t worry about trying understand all this in one go, over the next few weeks I will be posting more details in easy to understand bite sized chunks with live video examples.
Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology will:
- Eliminate the need for you to pre plan your designs.
- Eliminate model regeneration during construction.
- Allow you to easily modify a design even if you do not know how it was constructed.
- Allow you to edit supplier data more easily and more quickly than the supplier can in their native system.
Come back soon for more exciting news regarding Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology.