Sub-D, an increased familiarity for SOLIDWORKS users and plenty more.
The folks at Siemens are acting like they know something the rest of us don’t. Many of the new features in Solid Edge 2022 are clearly meant to make SOLIDWORKS users take notice, and perhaps even feel more at home. And it might actually work. But that’s not all that’s new in Solid Edge 2022—not by a long shot.
After reading through the available 2022 What’s New material, there are three big themes that emerge:
1) Large-scale plant design seems like a potential target, extrapolating from some of the 2022 enhancements in modular plant design, piping, frames, 3D sketches, hydrostatic analysis, system flow simulation, large-scale point cloud and, of course, large assembly performance.
2) Mesh, point cloud and sub-D (subdivision) data are here to stay and—yes, these data types really do matter to the engineer. Integrating point data into the engineering workflow may be even more important and revolutionary than synchronous technology reimagining direct editing over a decade ago.
3) It is clear that Siemens is trying to score the affections of SOLIDWORKS users. Users have not embraced cloud-based software unanimously and that hasn’t gone unnoticed in Huntsville, home of the Solid Edge team. It’s not an accident that much of the 2022 interface enhancements begin to look and work like that of a popular rival. Additionally, the functionality of Solid Edge CAD Direct is directly targeting its competitor’s data. Siemens wants to make the change to Solid Edge easier than to other CAD software that users might be considering. Solid Edge continues to make an investment in the desktop software, applying cloud tools where it makes sense.
Many of the enhancements that are not directly aimed at the users of competitive software can be considered catch-up features. These benefit even existing users and allow Solid Edge to make tire-kickers feel more at home. All competitors (in most industries) catch up by incorporating features found in other products, but the catching up in this case seems to be more deliberate.
Interface and Workflow
One of the best traits of the Solid Edge development team is that they tend to integrate new technology with the existing product in such a way that it doesn’t disrupt their existing customers. We see that with this release. Solid Edge 2022 integrates new ways of working without removing the good things that were already present in previous releases.
Interface enhancements in 2022 in each case add to the existing functions without eliminating existing workflows so the changes will not be disorienting to long-time Solid Edge users. In particular, in this release, Solid Edge has paid attention to the Object/Action vs Action/Object interface differences. For a long time, most of the interactions in Solid Edge have been Action/Object (Click Extrude, then make or select a sketch).
Because of these differences, Solid Edge users have been able to pick up SOLIDWORKS and use it easily enough. However, SOLIDWORKS users had a harder time working with Solid Edge.
But with the 2022 release, Solid Edge has made changes particularly to the sketch workflow, which puts SOLIDWORKS users on more familiar ground. The order of operations for sketching is more flexible. Context toolbars added to sketch environments in Solid Edge will also have a familiar look to SOLIDWORKS users and give existing users more options that are intuitive and easy to use.
Existing Solid Edge users may not notice a difference but people testing Solid Edge will be able to pick the line tool first, then pick a plane. Existing Edge users may still click the Sketch tool, then a plane, then select which sketch entity, such as a line, to use. In the end, all users should have more options and no one should be unhappy. That’s a win all around.
The sketch interface has been set up with more common tools using bigger icons. You can customize all this yourself, but really, who actually does that? The Sketch tool is less prominent in the new workflow, so it has been moved. There is an option to set the interface back the way it was previously for veteran users.
There are little things, like options for the display of base planes, the extent option icons and virtual intersection points, that also make life easier for CAD refugees. The default Solid Edge interface is very icon driven, which works best for people who have been using it for a long time, but new users will have to rely on tool tips, which is very time-consuming. Some new icons have been introduced for extent options (one sided, nonsymmetric and symmetric).
Another interface enhancement is the floating window. You can detach the main graphics window, put it on a second monitor, and make additional windows to view the same model. The Solid Edge Pathfinder (feature/assembly tree) and several other panels are also detachable, so the new floating windows help extend an already configurable interface. People these days have more and larger monitors, so why not take advantage of the extra space when you really need it?
The Command Finder has been in Solid Edge for some time, but in the 2022 version, there is an auto-complete function to help you see related commands before committing to the command. This was well intentioned , but the content for the kind of names—foreign or native—that are found is disappointingly limited. This could easily be remedied with a bigger table of related commands.
A novel function is the AI Command Predictor. The “AI” part of the function is like your phone offering you commonly used words to speed up typing. With all the interface options, it’s possible that you could turn off the ribbon and just use the predictor for 90 percent of your work, only needing to dig into the actual interface now and then to find a command. You could also use it as a set of suggestions for things you might make program hot keys for or put on the radial menus. The more you use it, the better the predictions get.
Solid Edge has added a pair of smiley/frowny faces to help you tell the team how the software makes you feel—the Give Us Your Feedback interface. Anything resembling humor has been missing in CAD since its inception, so congratulations to the Solid Edge team on the use of emojis. It’s refreshing to see a company encouraging interaction with real users. It may be a minor thing for developers , but it’s a major thing when it comes to dealing with customers as actual people.
Solid Edge 2022 gives us new options from the right mouse button menu in Windows Explorer. You can now pack-and-go an assembly and all its parts from outside of the application on any machine where Solid Edge is installed. Additionally, broken links can be identified quickly.
Sub-D Enhancements
Subdivision modeling was added to 2021 and that was a big deal. It wasn’t the most powerful set of sub-D tools available but its existence in a commercial mechanical CAD product was significant. Solid Edge 2022 brings us an additional set of tools, which again, by themselves are not Earth-shattering, but they represent an ongoing commitment to expanding sub-D modeling. Sub-D modeling within the range of responsibility of CAD users will take it out of the realm of specialists and lower the bar for entry into the world of organic shape development.
Sub-D, and especially sub-D in Solid Edge, is important because this is the second method that Siemens has brought to users that allows them to leave the history tree behind them. Synchronous Technology is a great set of tools for those who develop prismatic parts. Sub-D is an even better tool for those who develop complex organic shapes. It’s huge because its time savings over NURBS modeling is impossible to deny.
The new subdivision tools include Align To Curve, Bridge, Offset, Split with Offset and Laminar Edge support.
Mesh and B-rep Hybrid Bodies
Since mesh has become a standard data type in Solid Edge, it was inevitable that it would have to learn how to play nice with the other data types. For mesh to be taken seriously, mesh bodies need to be able to accept regular B-rep features.
The idea is that you make an organic shape using sub-D modeling and then engineer that part into a real plastic part with a shell, holes, bosses, a lip/groove and more. Real-world parts will require mixed data types. Solid Edge 2022 allows these mesh/B-rep hybrid bodies. It used to be that anything that touched a mesh turned into a mesh, but being able to maintain the high accuracy of B-rep is very important for many features, while the importance of easily developable shapes is also important for some areas of a production-ready CAD model. Siemens has “cracked the nut” of mesh/B-rep hybrid modeling, so to speak. You can even place a fillet around the intersection between the mesh and B-rep geometry. This is another enhancement where the brief announcement belies the significance of the development. It’s not just lip service to the inclusion of mesh data. Solid Edge continues to push to make this a practical reality.
Point Cloud Data in Assemblies
Solid Edge 2022 can take giant point clouds and put them into assembly documents, allowing you to design around them. The use cases presented all have to do with plant design but it’s clear that it could be used for other applications. Dan Staples, Solid Edge VP for R&D, has mentioned that the software can handle billions—yes, billions—of points. Siemens looked at other players in the industry and decided that if the software couldn’t perform at that scale, it really wasn’t worth implementing. Staples talked about refresh rates of 10-30 Hz even at that scale. The points each display color, so the cloud looks like a translucent skin of the scan, making it easier to use it as a reference.
Xcelerator Share
For some users, this will be huge. Xcelerator Share is an online (cloud) collaboration, view, approval and markup tool. You can perform advanced visualizations like exploded views and sections, as well as have traceability on markups and a workflow direction with approvals. The tool has no revision control, but it does connect with Teamcenter and directly to Solid Edge.
This will be especially useful as a link between contractors, non-CAD users in the approval loop, vendors, management, sales and, of course, any kind of communication outside the local network.
Xcelerator is a Siemens-wide initiative to push companies toward digitalization. The Share part of the name, however, seems obvious and is from the PLM side of the business.
It has also been noticed that Solid Edge has not had a proper viewer for some time. For a while, the viewer was just a full install of the product with only small areas of it licensed, resulting in a very large download for just a viewer. Plus, Siemens offers the JT2Go viewer, which handles Solid Edge data. The intention may be for Xcelerator Share to step in as a viewer for Solid Edge. It will be interesting to see if the online tool can view local data without uploading it to the cloud.
This tool requires a subscription for the online access. Check with your reseller to see if access to the tool comes with one of the Solid Edge packages.
CAD Direct
CAD Direct is an interoperability tool that allows Solid Edge to put part files from other applications such as NX and SOLIDWORKS directly into a Solid Edge assembly with no intermediate file type. You can also update the data so that when there are changes , you won’t have to reimport the files. The part in the assembly can be updated to reflect the changes. At this point, NX and SOLIDWORKS are the only formats covered, but the implication is that other formats will be added.
Another interoperability enhancement that might have more of a niche fan base is STEP AP242. It sounds esoteric to anyone but users of Synchronous Technology. You export and import data with PMI dimensions attached directly to the solid and you can use those dimensions to edit the model with Synchronous Technology. Read that again, all you history-based “dumb” model haters. You can use imported dimensions to drive dimensional changes to imported parts. That may seem crazy, but 2D has had this feature for years, and it’s about time we have it, too.
History-based users may not work with PMI dimensions as much as Synchronous Technology users do, but model based design (MBD) techniques do require this kind of work and now that STEP AP242 supports it and Solid Edge can make actual use of it, I’m sure this will start to gain traction.
Advanced Assembly Visualization
Often one enhancement will touch other areas of the software, so a single enhancement turns into several. Dynamic Visualization (DV) is one of those things. DV allows you to search through an assembly and change the display (color) of parts based on certain property values such as material, vendor, cost and so on.
Along with this enhancement, the properties that will be searched become more important, so the File Properties box has also received a makeover, adding flexibility and additional capabilities when adding properties for bulk parts in an assembly.
Summary
There is much more to Solid Edge 2022 than just what has been highlighted here, but there is too much to cover in one article. Standard Parts, file management, frames, electrical, 3D sketch, simulation and analysis, floating license admin and more areas have seen enhancements. Solid Edge 2022 has something for everyone, especially SOLIDWORKS users looking for an alternative, plant designers and, last but not least, the complex shape crowd looking to leave the history-based NURBS world behind.
