CAD Forum

Siemens recently released what is a bit of a revolution for small businesses in design and manufacturing. They took big-time PLM functions, slimmed them down a little, bundled them on the cloud, and are now offering it as a kind of mid-range PLM platform. It has slimmed down NX, Xcelerator Share, CAM Pro, and some additional tools. You don't have to install it, configure it or do implementation. No database admin involved. I wrote a Dezignstuff blog article that has more detail, if you're interested: https://dezignstuff.com/what-is-zel-x/ I have not been paid to write this post or the blog article, in fact, I bought 3 licenses just to play around with.

Interesting product. I like how you list your impressions, pros and cons alike; I'm guessing that's why you don't get paid to post. Also why reviews like yours are much more useful than the paid marketing content.

I found myself making questions to ask here, only to find you answer them later in the blog. One thing that I missed or wasn't clear enough for my density. You mention that there's CAD ability in the platform but likely using tool like Solid Edge for anything more than simple edits. Does this imply that a Solid Edge file can be uploaded to the system and then edited natively, saved, then downloaded and still able to edit in Solid Edge or is it "dumb solid" translation between desktop and cloud like some other system we know?

Thanks for asking the question, that led me to research a little.

When I first put a Solid Edge file in, it went in as a *.par file - Solid Edge format. But when I edited it inside of Zel X, it was converted to an NX file - *.prt. The edits happened in a way that looks like a synchronous edit. Then I downloaded it to my local machine, and I couldn't open it in SE after that, even when telling SE it was an NX file. Making edits creates a new version of the file, and it makes you save it with a new name. It would be nice if it automatically included a revision name in the new file name.
I think this is supposed to work. Not sure why it doesn't. If I get an answer, I'll report back here.

@matt Perhaps a version issue due to ZEL X probs using the latest Parasolid version...

KennyG wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 1:38 pm @matt Perhaps a version issue due to ZEL X probs using the latest Parasolid version...

What I heard from the YouTube product launch video Zel X is based on NX. So it will read and write NX files. But what I don't understand is why Siemens would bundle Zel X and Solid Edge (Classic and of course, it has to be XaaS version) together!
https://www.sw.siemens.com/en-US/zel-x/ ... re-bundle/

I see this as a basic tool for SMBs that need to create basic prismatic parts and modify imported geometry. The interesting thing for me to understand is the performance capabilities. This solution is completely hosted by Siemens. The CPU and GPU is also being done in the cloud. Time will tell.

Hi Guys,

There is a great interoperability between Solid Edge and Zel X. Here is a video where I use Zel X (latest update) and Solid Edge 2024 UD7 and you see that I'm using a part from Zel X and place it into SE assy...


Parasolid version issue? Siemens handles it well.

BR,