Siemens announced its annual update to Solid Edge today in a pre-recorded video that streamed on social media. Solid Edge 2023 includes new features, interface adjustments, and quality of life enhancements, but the biggest change to the CAD platform is a new licensing option that Siemens is calling Solid Edge XaaS.

Here’s everything you need to know about the new release.

Solid Edge as a Service

XaaS—pronounced zass and short for Xcelerator-as-a-Service—brings the desktop Solid Edge a step closer to Siemens’ cloud-focused Xcelerator portfolio.

“Solid Edge XaaS includes next-generation cloud-based technologies specifically designed to help our customers collaborate with colleagues, partners and customers in a secure environment,” said Dan Staples, Vice President of Solid Edge R&D at Siemens, in the release video.

On top of Solid Edge’s standard product development features, Solid Edge XaaS comes with cloud-based data management, collaboration features, project management tools, mobile device access, and more. That includes a project dashboard called Xcelerator Share that will let users see tasks at a glance, search their data, and even create Kanban boards to manage projects.

Solid Edge XaaS also includes another new licensing option that Siemens calls value-based licensing. This will let users unlock Solid Edge tools à la carte using tokens, which come in packs of 25 or 50 with an annual subscription.

“Value based licensing, part of a XaaS subscription, gives you access to a wide variety of Solid Edge products without having to buy each individual product. You can use what you want, when you want it,” Staples said.

There are eight compatible products: Generative Design Pro, Point Cloud Visualization, Solid Edge Electrical Routing, Solid Edge PCB Collaboration, Solid Edge Advanced PMI, Solid Edge Simulation Advanced, Solid Edge Simulation Standard, and Solid Edge XpresRoute. More products will be added to the list in time, according to Jeff Walker, Senior Director of Solid Edge at Siemens.

The new licensing model is an unsurprising move from Siemens, who has watched every major mid-market CAD competitor make a similar play over the past few years. Staples said that Solid Edge XaaS provides an “on-ramp to digital transformation” and strongly encouraged users to consider it. But don’t panic—Solid Edge is still available with a perpetual license.

New Look and Features

Solid Edge 2023 includes a few core CAD updates that Siemens believes will improve the user experience, starting with a new interface. “All commands and environments have been refreshed, providing an easier to use, modern and clean look and feel,” Walker said in the video.

The new release combines material addition and removal workflows into a single command, extrude. It also introduces automatic regions in ordered sketches, which Walker says speeds the sketching process by eliminating the need to trim sketch elements and project face edges. Solid Edge’s synchronous technology for direct editing on history-based models now extends to three new commands: move, rotate and offset.

Additionally, Solid Edge 2023 introduces a new library of more than 1000 material styles that can be dragged and dropped onto parts, as well as improved hole options and new assembly commands including slot, swept cut, subtraction, and union. There’s also a new explode feature that allows users to explode and collapse their assemblies with a slider, including a stepwise option for exploding subassemblies one-by-one.

Solid Edge 2023 is more tightly integrated with other Siemens products, according to Walker. He says that assembly kinematic information can be transferred from Solid Edge to downstream applications such as NX Mechanical Concept Designer and Process Simulate. Staples added that Siemens has also improved CAD Direct, which allows users to insert CAD formats including Solidworks, JT, STEP, and Parasolid directly in Solid Edge assemblies.

Generative Design and Simulation

When setting up a generative design study in Solid Edge 2023, users can now specify not just loads and constraints, but define the maximum permissible displacement for a point on a given face. “This helps guarantee the model has the appropriate amount of stiffness in a given direction,” Walker said. Solid Edge 2023 also offers a new planar symmetry constraint for generative design that can be applied across up to three orthogonal planes.

Solid Edge 2023 also allows users to validate generative designs with standard simulation techniques. “Although in theory generative models are created based on the actual part stresses, we find that some customers want an extra validation pass using proven Simcenter Nastran solvers. With our unique Siemens technology, we can actually mesh a mesh,” Staples said.

Speaking of meshes, Solid Edge 2023 adds support for duplicating meshes and performing mesh quality checks.

New CAM Capabilities

Solid Edge 2023 CAM Pro introduces some new machining features, including support for adaptive roughing cut patterns for 5-axis roughing. “This means very efficient machining and expert control of the stress on the cutting tool,” Walker said. The new release also adds support for rotary roughing on 4-axis machines as well as a brand-new wire EDM (electrical discharge machining) capability.

Siemens has also improved what it calls the Post Hub portal, which now includes a library of “smart machining kit simulations,” packages covering a variety of 3-, 4- and 5-axis machines for running simulations driven by G-code.

Documentation Updates

The new Solid Edge release includes several enhancements for documenting models, both through model-based definition (MBD) and drawing features as well as technical publication tools. For MBD, Solid Edge 2023 can automatically create and organize product manufacturing information (PMI) dimensions, and users can save custom schemes and automatically check if parts are over- or under-constrained. Users can also add notes and textbox annotations, which can be saved as templates.

Solid Edge 2023 also introduces a new feature for inspection planning. “Solid Edge Inspector automatically generates quality inspection data in reports users can trust while enabling seamless communication in the downstream manufacturing process,” Staples said, adding that the Inspector tool can automatically identify and label important information in up to 80 percent less time than manual entry methods.

Solid Edge 3D Publishing, a tool for creating technical publications like manuals, has a new user interface and new features such as a page view tab, new animation types, and the ability to create custom transitions.

Ultimately, Staples believes that new release of Solid Edge will make users more productive and efficient. “With exciting new capabilities such as simplified modeling workflows, value based licensing, Solid Edge XaaS, improved interoperability, Solid Edge Inspector, Kanban boards, and literally hundreds more, Solid Edge 2023 is our best release yet,” he said.