Built around industry-specific workflows, Siemens NX software is the “engine” behind the digital twin — delivering powerful, flexible tools to drive innovation from concept to manufacturing.
The June 2025 release introduces a wide range of outstanding new features designed to boost productivity and optimize your workflows. In this update, we will dive deeper into the enhancements for design. Highlights include upgrades in Sketch creation, Design in Context, and Advanced Shape Design, along with overall improvements to the user interface. Let’s go into details:
1. Core Design
The latest NX release introduces powerful new curve creation capabilities in NX Sketch, delivering significantly improved usability and responsiveness.
At the heart of this update is a modern, intuitive user interface for creating Sketch curves — including a pencil cursor to indicate “Create Curve Mode” and a dynamic handle that follows the pointer’s movement.
A clear color-coding system communicates the corresponding snapping functions:
-
Red: no snapping
-
Yellow: point-on-curve snapping
-
Green: coincident snapping
These enhancements support multiple input methods — mouse, stylus, and touch screen — while also offering full API journaling support for programming. This is a valuable addition for both end users and developers.
The user interface has been updated with a more intuitive look.
The expanded Curve Creation functionality now supports both traditional and modern interaction methods, retaining the classic MB1 click while also adding press-and-drag with MB1.
Direction locking has also been improved, allowing activation with MB2 during snap preview or automatically locking when the pointer pauses. You can easily unlock by using MB2 or with a simple pointer shake.
Enhanced interaction features include the ability to adjust starting points for lines and arcs with MB1 press-and-drag, while trimming and extending within a command can now be performed with intuitive scribble gestures.
The new NX Sketch interface also introduces the ability to:
-
Lock length, angle, and radius parameters using the “stamp” feature
-
Chain curves to form Profiles
-
Create Reference Geometry
-
Create Segments, Infinite Lines, or both
Build Profiles with Line and Arc commands
In the latest NX version, you can create Profiles seamlessly using Line and Arc commands, with a notable new addition — MB3 functionality.
You can activate Chaining to build Profiles and switch between Line and Arc with MB3 — eliminating the need to open a dialog box. In addition, NX now supports tangent and perpendicular snapping to previous curves in the chain, ensuring precise and smooth Profile creation.
Enhanced tangent control for faster Profile creation
The improved Curve Creation functions now support smart tangent snapping from Line to Arc, offering greater control and flexibility. With advanced tangent behavior, you can break tangent simply by moving the pointer past a snap point — the mouse movement direction after snapping determines whether the line will remain tangent or not.
A notable new feature is Tangent Sliding, allowing arcs to smoothly slide along straight lines for exact positioning. Users can also dynamically redefine arcs by moving the pointer across arc points, while a simple mouse shake quickly breaks tangent when needed.
New Line creation methods add flexibility
Based on customer feedback, the latest NX release introduces new curve creation methods to enhance design flexibility. Two of the most requested functions have been added:
-
Line from Mid-point
-
Rectangle from Center
With Line from Mid-point, the first point selected acts as the midpoint, and the line extends in both directions — while still retaining the core functions of the standard Line command. Note that Chaining, Relative Angle, and Change to Arc are not supported in this method.
The Rectangle from Center function builds on previous improvements, delivering a more efficient workflow where reference lines and center points are created automatically, making editing stronger and more effective.
Axial Pattern support for cylindrical and conical features
The Axial Pattern capability in NX supports workflows requiring patterns along cylindrical or conical surfaces. This breakthrough feature allows users to combine cylindrical and linear patterns in a single operation, greatly optimizing designs with multiple circular and axial repetitions.
The “Axial” option in the Stagger setting creates alternating copies along the axis, offsetting by half a pitch step for better distribution.
This comprehensive function enables precise pattern creation along diameters, while extending axially, with full support for conical surfaces as well as axial staggering.
In the June 2025 release, Axial Pattern has been integrated into multiple pattern creation tools, including:
-
Pattern Feature
-
Pattern Geometry
-
Pattern Face
It is also supported in Reference Pattern operations, offering greater flexibility and synchronization in design.
2. Design in Context
Improved visualization and management of interpart relationships with Interpart Navigator
The Diagram tool in NX 2506 is an ideal solution for visualizing and validating best practices in interpart modeling. With this tool, interpart relationships can be clearly displayed in the assembly structure context, while also allowing detailed analysis of relationship types, including interpart expressions.
The diagram illustrates the assembly structure (black lines) and interpart relationships (green curves) in a product model.
The Pack Nodes function supports clear visualization of relationships between component instances, while the option to hide unlinked nodes keeps diagrams clean and easier to follow.
Boolean functions supporting empty Feature Groups
In NX 2506, Boolean operations (Unite, Subtract, Intersect) have been significantly enhanced. Users can easily perform Boolean operations even with empty collectors. NX also allows handling of non-intersecting target and tool cases, while adding an option to exclude sheet bodies to avoid clutter. These upgrades make design workflows more flexible, faster, and less manual.
Mirror Body with option to delete the original
The Mirror Body command has been enhanced for better template use through Boolean logic and Feature Group collectors (Target/Tool). Users can now choose whether to keep or delete the original body after mirroring.
The delete option in Mirror Body simplifies design reuse.
Additionally, Mirror Body now includes an option to exclude sheet bodies and supports smart collectors (automatically detecting bodies or body groups), making geometric mirroring more flexible and efficient.
3. Advanced Shape Design
Easily detect and manage self-intersections when using Offset Surface, ensuring more accurate design results
When executing Offset Surface, the system alerts users if surface patches are automatically created to avoid self-intersections. A warning message appears during feature creation and is also shown in the Part Navigator. Users can clear the message with the “Clear Information Messages” option.
Warning appears when offset surfaces self-intersect, with patches automatically generated to avoid geometry errors.
Improved internal surface continuity for higher-quality mesh surfaces
The Split Output along Boundary Curves option lets users create high-quality multi-face surfaces with a single command such as Through Curve Mesh or Studio Surface. The output is automatically split into multiple faces based on section segments and internal curves, while still maintaining continuity across adjacent surfaces.
This option was also introduced for Through Curves and Ruled commands in NX 2412, ensuring consistency across NX surfacing tools.
The “Split Output along Boundary Curves” option allows splitting the resulting surface along boundaries, even with blends or sharp corners.
Summary
The NX 2506 update, released in June 2025, brings a host of outstanding enhancements focused on performance, visualization, and design flexibility — optimizing workflows from sketching to advanced modeling.
These improvements not only boost productivity but also encourage creativity, flexibility, and quality in every design model — reinforcing Siemens NX as a leading, powerful tool for engineers and designers in the digital era.
Read more:
- Introducing NX X Essentials | Browser-based entry-level CAD/CAM/CAE
- Integrated Data Management With NX
- Recommended computer configuration for installing NX 2412
