S.N.A.P. stands for Simple NX Application Programming. It’s an Application Programming Interface (API)that lets you write programs to customize or extend NX. The benefit is that small applications created this way can often speed up repetitive tasks for you, and capture important design process knowledge.

NX already has other APIs, of course, including GRIP, NX Open, and Knowledge Fusion (KF), so you may be wondering why yet another one is needed. The GRIP language has not been enhanced for many years, so it’s very much behind the times. NX Open and KF are enormously broad and powerful, but the power comes with a lot of complexity, and many people find it difficult to even get started. So, the main point of NX SNAP is that it’s designed to be learned quickly by average NX users—people who have little or no previous programming experience. The focus is on simplicity and ease of learning, so that typical users can write small programs to improve their productivity without a lot of study and preparation. Since SNAP is based on NX Open, you can smoothly graduate to NX Open programming later, if you want.

You may have noticed that SNAP sounds a little like GRIP. This is not an accident. Although it’s based on completely new development and entirely different technology, SNAP is very similar to GRIP in spirit and purpose. So, if you remember GRIP, and you liked it, we hope you’ll like SNAP, too.

To learn more about NX SNAP follow this link to access the Getting Started with NX SNAP manual:

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