Snap vs journaling 4

[skanskan]

Hello
Is it journaling old-fashioned because of the arrival of snap?
Which one is better to use or more powerful?
(besides NXOpen)

 

[jerry1423]

I'd like to know what you are talking about.

 

[Toost]

Jerry:
From the NX8 Whats new:

SNAP — New programming tool
What is it?
A new programming tool is added to the NX system for creating custom programs. Simple NX Application Programming (SNAP) is an easy-to-learn programming tool intended for mechanical designers and other typical NX users – not just for programmers. The code is simple, short, readable, and feels “natural” so it is quicker to learn and easier to apply.

SNAP is useful for automating simple processes that you do repeatedly, or for creating simple parts that you use frequently.

SNAP is similar to the GRIP language in its purpose, flexibility, and ease of use. So if you have used GRIP before, you will probably also find SNAP to be a productive tool.

SNAP is based on the Visual Basic (VB.Net) language and is best used with Visual Studio, however you can create some simple programs using the NX Journal Editor.

Besides the above, i have no clue

 

[skanskan]

Hi
Toost, I know that, I had already read that info before but I don't know the differences betwen that SNAP and Journaling.
I want to learn just one.

regards

 

[Toost]

Sorry Skanskan, my reply was for Jerry1423, not meant to hijack the thread.
Regards,
Tomas

 

[lharrison]

Having heard from the few guys that went to Vegas this year for the conference, SNAP is a more functional version of VB. Many of the scripts look very similar to their VB counterparts, though it appeared that some more advanced NX features were easier to access in SNAP than in VB(or C#). If your only looking to learn one language, i would recommend VB instead of SNAP. SNAP may have a slightly shallower learning curve, but it cannot be applied outside of NX. If you learn VB, it will help you in scripting within NX, but also develop skills that can be applied to applications that run outside of NX as well. And if you you learn VB, you will easily be able to transition to SNAP if you are still interested.

For the record, when writing NXOpen applications I choose to code in Visual Studio 2010 and in C#.

Bruce

 

[skanskan]

lharrison , I already know VB, C++ and some other language.
The complication here is not VB itself but the API or specific commands for NX.


No problem, Toost

 

[lharrison]

Sorry, I misunderstood this from your previous post: "I want to learn just one."
The VB is not too difficult, though many methods use the factory-pattern and can feel very tedious. The easiest way to get started is to fire up the journaling toolbar and hit record, do some stuff, then view the VB code behind your actions. Use that in conjugation with the .Net NXOpen help file to lookup functions and you should be on your way in no time.

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you go to the NX Help files (starting with NX 8.0) under the 'Programming Tools' product area, there is a section on SNAP which includes a link to the 'SNAP Reference Guide' which can be downloaded as a .pdf file. You should really start there.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[skanskan]

JohnRBaker , then do you advise me to go for SNAP instead of journaling?

 

[JohnRBaker]

They serve different purposes.

If most of your work is simply going to be automating existing interactive workflows with only an occasional bit of added logic, then Journaling is the way to go. But if what you want is to create models based on purely parametric or logical decision making or where more complex math routines are needed, or there's a need to read data from existing geometry or from some external data files, then you need something more rich in terms of traditional programming tools, but necessarily something like full-blown NX Open using C++ or C#.

Anyway, look at the SNAP Reference Guide and see if the sort of thing that might interest you.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[skanskan]

Then, SNAP is more similar to NX Open or to Journaling?

 

[JohnRBaker]

In terms of how you 'write' a program, then yes, SNAP is closer to NX Open than Jounaling, but that's misleading as well since they share much of the same underlying architecture of NX as well as things like VB. I guess you could say that it fills some sort of 'middle ground' but even that's misleading. SNAP is for people who need to write real programs because what you can do with the logic and math routines, but they do not with to become full fledged application programmers. What we're looking for is something that will be easy to use by engineers and but not necessarily suitable for professional programmers.

I guess you could put it another way, if want to automated something but you want to write the absolute least amount of code, try Journaling. If you're willing to learn some simple Visual Basic programming, for which there's dozens of how-to-books out there for the non-programmer, then SNAP may be what you're looking for, but if you're looking for the most functionality with the best performance or you're tackling really big data sets, then full-blown NX Open is probably for you.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[skanskan]

OK, then I think I must learn SNAP.
And only If I need something faster I'll try NX Open with C++

thanks

 

[cowski]

Your choice will also depend on what type of operations you want to automate. From what I've read, SNAP currently only works with the modeling application. If you need to automate something in drafting or assemblies, you are out of luck - for now, anyway; I'm sure more functionality will be added in future releases. Also, I'm unclear about the licensing for SNAP; I was hoping it would be available to everyone in the basic bundle, but the last I heard seemed to indicate it was an additional cost license.

SNAP and journaling are both interfaces to the NXOpen API; take the journal that you have recorded, compile it, and you have an NXOpen app. Since SNAP and journaling both use the same underlying API, speed of execution should be very similar.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

If your only looking to learn one language, i would recommend VB instead of SNAP.

This statement needs to be corrected and some clarification made.

To start with, SNAP is NOT a separate 'programming language' but rather a collection of library functions which can be called from many different programming lanaguages, including VB.

Also on June 28th I suggested that if anyone is interested in learning more about SNAP that they should review a document titled 'SNAP Reference Guide'. In retrospect, that's probably not the document that someone who is learning about SNAP for the first time should look at.

If you go to the NX Open section of the NX Help documents you will find another document titled 'SNAP Getting Started Guide'. This is the best material available to learn what SNAP is and how it can be used in conjuction with NX (there's even a chapter which will help you learn how to write VB programs, period). The original document which I had mentioned, the 'SNAP Reference Guide', is actually more of a 'help' file style item intended for people who are already creating SNAP programs and wish to learn more about individual SNAP functions and how they can be used, irrespective of the programming language which the SNAP functions are being called from.

Anyway, sorry for the delay in getting this reply written but we wanted to make sure that there was no misconceptions about exactly what SNAP is (or is not) as well as making sure that people have been given the best advice as to what their next steps should be if they wish to learn more about SNAP.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[bmaverick]

Oh SNAP, just when you thought that GRIP made our day just griping away, another programing tool comes our way. LOL

The word SIMPLE is the first letter in the SNAP. I sure hope so. My programing skills are weak. I tend to mess around with previous GRIP programs to bend them to my needs. Having a programing tool that will be a SNAP is welcomed. However, it may be two years before jumping to that or any other NX new release since we follow to the beat of GM as a Tier-1.

So, my GRIP (gripe) days march on ....