What’s New in NX | June 2025 | Core Design

Welcome to the latest edition of What’s New in NX™ software series! Built around industry-specific workflows, NX is the engine behind the digital twin—delivering powerful, flexible tools that drive innovation from concept to production. 

The June 2025 release brings a host of powerful new features designed to elevate your productivity and streamline your workflows. In this update, we’ll take a closer look at the latest enhancements in Core Design and spotlight improvements to the Sketch Curve Creation functionality as well as improvements to the overall user interface.

Let’s dive in!

New Curve Creation functionality for interaction and feedback

The latest NX release introduces powerful new Curve Creation functions within NX Sketch that deliver enhanced usability and feedback. At the core of this update is a modern, intuitive UI for creating Sketch curves—including a pencil cursor that indicates “Create Curve Mode” and a dynamic handle that follows cursor movement. An intuitive color-coding system conveys corresponding functionality:

• Red indicates no snapping
• Yellow signals point-on-curve snapping
• Green confirms coincident snapping

These enhancements support multiple input methods, including mouse, stylus, and touch screens, while providing comprehensive journaling API support for creating programmatic functions, making it a valuable addition for both end-users and developers.

Updated and more intuitive user interface interaction

Enhanced functionality for Curve Creation now supports both traditional and modern interaction methods, offering legacy MB1 click behavior alongside new MB1 press-and-drag capabilities. Direction locking has been improved with the ability to trigger this feature through MB2 when previewing snap conditions, or by pausing the cursor for automatic direction lock. You can also unlock directions using either MB2 or a simple shake gesture.

Enhanced manipulation features include the ability to adjust a line or arc’s start handle through MB1 press-and-drag interactions; while in-command trimming and extending can be accomplished through intuitive scribble gestures.

The new NX Sketch UI also introduces the ability to:

• Lock length, angle, and radius parameters with a “stamp” feature
• Chain curves to create Profiles
• Generate Reference Geometry
• Create Segments, Infinite Lines, or both

Create Profiles using the Line and Arc commands

In this most recent version of NX, you can now create Profiles seamlessly using Line and Arc commands, with the notable addition of MB3 functionality. You can activate Chaining to create profiles and switch between Lines and Arcs using MB3—eliminating the need to access the dialog box. Both tangent and perpendicular snapping to preceding curves in the chain is also supported, ensuring precise and connected profile creation.

Increased tangency control for quicker profile creation

Improved Curve Creation functions feature intelligent Line to Arc snapping capabilities, offering greater control and flexibility. With enhanced tangency features, you can now break tangency simply by passing the cursor through the snap point—while mouse direction after snapping determines whether a line is created tangent or not.

A notable addition is the Tangent Sliding feature, which allows arcs to slide smoothly along lines for precise positioning. Users can dynamically modify arc definitions by passing the cursor through arc points, and a simple shake gesture provides a quick way to break tangency when needed.

New Line Creation methods provide flexibility

In response to customer feedback, NX’s latest release introduces valuable new curve creation methods that enhance design flexibility. The update features two highly requested functions: Line from Mid-point and Rectangle from Center.

The Line from Mid-point capability introduces a new approach to line creation where the initial point serves as the midpoint, allowing the line to extend bidirectionally with the same core functionality as the standard Line command. It is worth noting here that Chaining, Relative Angle, and Change to Arc features are not supported using this method.

The Rectangle from Center function builds upon previous enhancements, offering an improved workflow where reference lines and center points are automatically generated, resulting in superior modification capabilities.

Axial Pattern enables support for cylindrical and conical shaped parts

The Axial Pattern capability of NX supports workflows that require patterns along cylindrical or conical faces. This innovative feature enables users to combine cylindrical and linear patterns in a single operation, significantly streamlining workflows for components with circular and axial repeated elements.

This comprehensive functionality allows for precise patterning around a diameter while simultaneously extending along an axis, with full support for conical faces as well as axial stagger. With the June 2025 release of NX, Axial Pattern has been integrated across multiple pattern tools, including Pattern Feature, Pattern Geometry, and Pattern Face commands, while also being supported within Reference Pattern operations.

Conclusion

Thanks for stopping by learn about and explore some of the exciting new Core Design features in the June 2025 release of NX!  We’ll continue to share more What’s New in NX highlights as we cover additional topics and industry-specific capabilities—so be sure to bookmark the NX Design Blog and check back regularly!

In addition to the What’s New in NX series, don’t miss our Tips & Tricks series to explore even more content and videos from the June 2025 Premiere. The Tips & Tricks posts are a great way to dive deeper in NX functionality and learn how to streamline your design workflows.