With the upcoming release of NX® 5 software, come a number of changes and improvements to NX user training. First and foremost the Practical Applications of NX course will be replaced by Essentials for NX Designers and the former Design Applications Using NX course will be replaced by Intermediate NX Design and Assemblies. The focus of the changes is to realign the course content to reflect new modeling methodologies. Both courses will remain five days in length.

The Essentials for NX Designers class will focus strictly on sketch based modeling methods rather than the former combination of primitive and form feature based modeling along with sketching. With the enhancements added to the software in NX4 and the expansion of those enhancements in NX5, the emphasis on sketch based modeling is clearly the most flexible approach a designer can take when building models. Sketch management enhancements in NX 4 and NX 5 allow for embedded sketches and better control of construction geometry thereby reducing the use of layer management to control the display of this geometry.

Similar to the coordination of learning objectives between Practical Applications of NX and Design Applications of NX courses, the Intermediate NX Design and Assemblies is designed to build on the foundation gained in the Essentials course.

Also new in NX 5 are some changes to the NX CAM curriculum. The former five-day NX Manufacturing Fundamentals with Basic Design course will be split into two separate classes. NX Basic Design is one of the new course names and it will continue to be a minimum prerequisite before attending the other new CAM course for NX5, which is named NX Manufacturing Fundamentals. These courses will continue to be scheduled together within one-week (NX Basic Design, two days and NX Manufacturing Fundamentals, three days) such that new users to NX are able to get the introductory CAM training within a five day period.

Additional benefits in splitting this class include: 1) Allowing students to select the level of CAD exposure they want prior to attending the NX Manufacturing Fundamentals class, such that they could opt for attending the five-day Essentials for NX Designers class versus the two-day NX Basic Design class; 2) Providing an entry point for CAM Express customers into the three-day NX Manufacturing Fundamentals class, which would be the appropriate next step for training after they complete the self-paced CAM Express tutorials which are bundled with the software; and 3) Any customer having taken the former Practical Applications course in NX 3 and prior, can enter into the NX Manufacturing Fundamentals class without having to attend the NX Basic Design course.

The NX Basic Design class will also be leveraged as an alternate pre-requisite course for the NX 5 Drafting Essentials and NX 5 Advanced Simulation courses.

Look for more information regarding additional offerings in the coming months.