Best practices – SolidWorks

Check your models before migration Before you migrate models from SolidWorks to NX, check that they are accurate and up-to-date in SolidWorks. You should be able to rebuild them in SolidWorks without error. Parts As you migrate from SolidWorks to NX, most of your high-level practices for creating parts, assemblies, and drawings will also be good practices in NX because many of the general concepts of associativity, datums, features, parameters, sketches, and sketch constraints are similar. On the other hand, the danger of mapping all of your practices to similar practices in NX is that you may miss the opportunity to use new functionality in NX. Datum features The NX Datum CSYS feature is one feature. It is not the same as the three default planes in SolidWorks. When creating new parts in NX, use a Datum CSYS feature as the first feature. When editing migrated parts, if necessary, create a new Datum CSYS feature in NX and reorder it to the beginning of the history. As you make changes using Synchronous Modeling commands, or add new features, position features and sketches relative to this Datum CSYS. Sketches You can add sketch curves to a sketch in NX by projecting part edges into a sketch, or by sectioning the model to create curves and then projecting these curves into a sketch. NX geometric constraints are similar to SolidWorks sketch relations. As you create sketches in NX, minimize the number of dimension constraints by using geometric constraints instead; such as equal length, equal radius, collinear, coincident, and midpoint constraints. Features SolidWorks parts can be migrated to NX with features using CMM. You can edit these migrated features or add new features to the migrated models. If you migrate the part models as a boundary representation (B-Rep) using CMM or NX Migration, you can create parametric features to these models using NX Synchronous Modeling commands. Assemblies Use the Assembly Navigator to investigate the assembly structure. To work on a specific part in an assembly, make it the work part in the assembly, or make it the displayed part. Use the Part Navigator to investigate the features in the assembly work part. View assembly constraints in the Constraint Navigator. Chapter 15: Migrating SolidWorks data

Migrating SolidWorks data Drawings After migrating drawings, check them in NX. The NX Drawing Comparison Tool is not available to compare the original SolidWorks drawings to the migrated drawings. Migrating SolidWorks data