solid edge 2025

Solid Edge 2025 redefines your design experience with a variety of new features and enhancements that will help you innovate without limits.

Written by CAM Logic Application Engineer and Solid Edge Expert, Jason Walker

Date Posted: October 23rd, 2024

With Siemens’ launch of Solid Edge 2025 there are a variety of updates spanning across the whole portfolio. There are improvements to productivity, ease of use, features that enable new workflows, and even a few new products. Having worked with most of our Solid Edge customers directly, I would like to highlight what I think are the most beneficial updates. 

Introducing: Solid Edge X

Alongside Solid Edge 2025’s release, is the launch of cloud-based Solid Edge X. By using Solid Edge X, you can access the capabilities of Solid Edge from any device with an internet connection. This provides a large amount of flexibility for users that work in different environments. I think that Solid Edge X is a great opportunity for new customers to venture into 3D design because the cloud-based software removes barriers of entry such as, a license server, shared file storage, and even workstations themselves. Since the software is running on the cloud, Solid Edge X can be used without requiring an expensive engineering workstation. These are some of the ways that Solid Edge X can reduce IT overhead required for locally installed software. 

Value Based Licensing

Value based licensing was introduced with Solid Edge 2023 and each year since Siemens has added to the list of accessible features. Solid Edge 2025 is no exception, as Siemens has included two more add-ons with Value Based Licensing: Solid Edge Piping Design and Solid Edge P&ID design. Together, these add-ons makeup Solid Edge Modular Plant Design and are ideal for customers in the Heavy Equipment Industry. 

Solid Edge Piping Design is an add-on that provides tools for highly automated 3D modeling of complex piping systems. These automation tools are based on piping industry standards and specifications. Solid Edge P&ID design is a tool in the Solid Edge portfolio for the creation of Piping and instrumentation Diagrams. It integrates with Solid Edge Piping Design to easily develop the diagrams into full 3D models.  

Of course, the other add-ons are also available for Value-based Licensing making it both powerful and flexible.

Technical Publications

Significant changes have also been made to Solid Edge Technical Publications. One new feature, Adaptive Parts Tables, allows parts lists to be associated with a 3D View so that it only lists currently visible components. Another feature can make parts in your 3D Views into interactive objects called “Hot Spots”. Actions such as animations and page changes can be assigned to hotspots in the same way they can be assigned to buttons. These are both great new tools for creating interactive technical documents. Now what about sharing those documents? 

Solid Edge Technical Publications is now integrated with Teamcenter Share, allowing you to publish your documents to Teamcenter Share as a viewable and interactive webpage. I think that this opens the door for a variety of new workflow options. One example could be work instructions. If someone is assigned a task in Teamcenter Share to assemble a product, the work instructions for assembling the product can be included and viewed right from the task. This is just one of many use cases for the integration of Technical Publications and Teamcenter Share.

Zel X

Zel X is a platform that already greatly improves the day-to-day operations of small and medium manufacturing companies. With the recent updates to Zel X it is now capable of creating even more efficiencies than before. For example, you can now create Quote Templates and Configure Quotes in Zel X. By Creating quote templates you can standardize the quoting process, increasing efficiency. On top of creating templates, quotes can now be configured in Zel X. By configuring your quotes, you can decide what is displayed on a customer quote and the order that it arranged. All these updates make for a more streamlined quoting process. 

There are also several updates to the collaboration features in Zel X. Groups can now be created for projects to help keep them organized. Both Projects and Tasks can have the status options customized. Default status options can be changed, and new status options can be added. In my opinion, however, the most significant update for Zel X is that files within different projects can be synced together. This will help avoid any duplicate files and keep all information up to date. Any changes made to a file will also be applied to any file it has been synchronized with. This will help prevent people from using files that are out of date.

Introducing: Capital X Panel Designer 

Capital X Panel Designer is a new product that I am excited to talk about. It is a cloud-native electrical CAD software that requires no installation, or setup. Once you are signed in, you can drag and drop symbols to create your Electrical Schematics. This simple setup and ease of use is why I am excited about the product. While talking to many different users at multiple organizations, I noticed that complexity and initial setup are often a roadblock for electrical design. I think that Capital X Panel Designer is a great option that will resolve that issue. The software also offers more than electrical schematics and panel layouts. Capital X Panel Designer can also create diagrams for Pneumatic and Hydraulic Systems. So, on top of having a simple setup and being easy to use, it is also a flexible, multipurpose tool. If you would like to learn more about Capital X Panel Designer, Click Here. *Please note, Capital X Panel Designer is a NEW name for what was once called Capital Electra X. Some Siemens material and website content may still contain the old name.

The enhancements and updates that I explained above are the changes that I think have the most potential for our customers. It is certainly not an exhaustive list. There are many more changes throughout the portfolio that our Solid Edge customers will find advantageous. A full list of all the updates and changes made to Solid Edge 2025 can be found here.

Questions?

If you have any questions feel free to reach out to our team. With over 25 years experience in providing Siemens PLM solutions, we can help!