You can read the complete interview here.
What follows is a narrative based on our conversation.
For forty-two years, Dan Staples has helped create CAD tools, including Solid Edge, through the shifting sands of computer time. From its Intergraph origins in Huntsville, Alabama, when it first took shape as Jupiter (named for the Florida city where Intergraph CEO Jim Meadlock vacationed) to its place today inside Siemens Digital Industries Software, Solid Edge has survived and evolved through almost every transformation the CAD industry has seen—Windows, parametrics, Synchronous Technology, the cloud… and for the first time, a name change, or more accurately a name extension.
The venerable Solid Edge will now be known as Designcenter Solid Edge, consistent with Siemens other “centers.” It may have started with Teamcenter, followed by Simcenter and Opcenter (for manufacturing) and now Designcenter (which includes NX).
As soon as we hear Siemens will be introducing a major update to Solid Edge, we call up Dan to find out what the most important improvements are, hoping for a healthy dose of AI.
“You don’t have to hope, AI is the lead headline,” says Dan. “AI isn’t hype,” he told ENGtechnica. “It’s real, it’s here to stay—and it’s changing how engineers design.”
Thirty Years of Momentum
Next April will mark the thirtieth anniversary of Solid Edge’s first shipment. By Dan’s count, there have been “around thirty to thirty-five releases” in that time, a number skipped (13) and, here and there, two releases in a year, but generally, you could expect an annual update from the Solid Edge people.
Dan got his start with software when he joined Intergraph forty-two years ago.
For all we knew, he could have been there forever. Dan has been leading and fighting for Solid Edge at every release. We started calling him the “father of Solid Edge,” a title he says makes him smile. Dan credits his team for Solid Edge’s success.
Whether paternal or not, Dan has been the constant presence behind a product that quietly built a reputation for usability, precision, and unusually loyal users.
The 2026 release revolves around three AI-driven technologies:
- Intelligent Assembly
- Conversational Assistant (Copilot)
- Automatic Drawing Generation
Checkmate? Almost.
Designcenter Solid Edge 206 trots out Intelligent Assembly, AKA magnetic snap.
“Engineers can look at two parts and immediately know how they fit,” Dan explained. “We’re teaching AI to do the same.”
The new Intelligent Assembly feature recognizes mating conditions on the fly. As users drag a component near its intended location, Designcenter Solid Edge automatically snaps it into place—aligning holes, faces, and concentric features —all without manually assigning mates.
“It still creates proper constraints under the hood,” Dan said, “but it figures out how parts fit automatically.”
Automatically snapping into place may seem like a minor effort on Siemens’ part. As so often happens, when technology works well, it looks simple. But for all who have had to add mates, lining up parts edge to edge or by concentric holes, keep some degrees of freedom and remove others — magnetic snap is a godsend. Assemblies—Solid Edge’s most-used environment, according to Dan, can now be built more intuitively and far faster. To that, we add that it will make the assembly environment, rather than the part environment, easier to enter and stay in. And then come the benefits: fit and function. How parts fit—or don’t – becomes obvious. Range of motion, think robot arms or cranes, becomes fun.
Conversational Assistant (Copilot)
With ChatGPT and other LLMs able to understand natural language, we waited impatiently for it to reach CAD. Why should I have to learn the language of Solid Edge—or any design or design and engineering application, for that matter? Why shouldn’t the CAD program learn my language?
Designcenter Solid Edge’s new Design Copilot is exactly what I’m talking about.
The copilot uses generative AI to respond to natural-language questions—“How do I use the hole command?” or “What’s the best way to mirror this feature?”—and searches Siemens’ documentation, tutorials, and training libraries for the proper process, including the precise commands you would have to issue.
“It’s the difference between hunting through menus and just asking,” Dan said. “You don’t have to remember the exact Solid Edge term. Ask it conversationally and it figures it out.”
Long-term, Dan envisions something more ambitious: direct natural-language creation or modification of geometry. “You’ll be able to say, ‘Create a plate with four holes evenly spaced across five inches,’ and it will build it for you,” he said. “That’s coming—and not in the distant future.”
For now, the Copilot serves as an intelligent tutor, lowering the learning curve for new users and helping veterans rediscover forgotten tools.
Automatic Drawing Generation
If there’s a single feature Dan sounds most excited about, it’s this one.
“Ask any engineer what they least enjoy, and you’ll hear the same thing: creating drawings,” he said. “Your value is in design, but you still have to deliver drawings because that’s what people need.”
By analyzing millions of drawings produced by Solid Edge users, Siemens’ AI now recognizes recurring patterns—such as sheet sizes, view arrangements, and dimensioning conventions—and automates them.
The system selects the appropriate sheet layout, generates the standard views, and automatically applies most dimensions. “We can get about eighty percent of a drawing done automatically,” Dan said. “The user just cleans up the rest.”
In this way, the engineer’s burden is reduced from creating the drawing to checking it.
It’s not hard to imagine what comes next. “Soon an AI agent will check those drawings for standards compliance,” Dan added. “One AI will generate; another will verify.”
AI and the Future of Drawings
For decades, CAD insiders predicted the death of paper drawings. Dan doesn’t buy it. “Forty years ago, people were saying the same thing,” he said. “A manager once told me, ‘When you can get me an E-size monitor that folds up and fits in my pocket, let me know.’ ”
Drawings, he argues, remain the universal language of manufacturing. AI may automate them, but it won’t eliminate them entirely.
In some cases, despite the paperless world prediction, paper remains the most convenient and 2D the most efficient method of conveying part shape, though I will insist that an iPad, Apple Pencil, and a sketching app are in many ways superior to ordinary pen and paper.
SmartStep and the DNA of Usability
Solid Edge’s hallmark has always been usability. Dan recalled how, in the mid-1990s, his team created SmartStep, a sequential workflow panel that guided users through complex operations.
“Windows didn’t have multi-step commands,” he said. “We invented SmartStep so users could follow along—select, define, confirm—without getting lost.”
Designcenter Solid Edge 2026 adds support for dark support, which Dan says will be more natural for the current generation of engineers and designers, all of whom have grown up with touchscreens.
Sheet Metal and NX Synergy
Solid Edge has long been known for its sheet-metal prowess, a reputation that continues under the new Designcenter branding. Siemens now markets NX and Solid Edge as parts of a single Designcenter ecosystem that includes Siemens’ enterprise CAD application, NX and its mainstream application, Solid Edge. This bundling implies that designs will flow from one to another—which remains to be seen—but also that the two development teams have been thrust together.
CAD insiders have placed NX above Solid Edge in terms of sophistication, but that has not always been the case. Take sheet metal design, for example.
“We share the sheet-metal module one hundred percent,” Dan said. “It was originally written by the Solid Edge team, then enhanced by NX’s manufacturing team. Now both sides benefit.”
The 2026 release brings several refinements:
- Tab-and-slot creation that automatically generates both male and female features in a single command.
- Multi-edge flange trimming that automatically miters overlapping flanges.
- Etching around bends, allowing text or part numbers to wrap across bend radii and update dynamically.
“We’re not done yet,” Dan said. “Even with something as mature as sheet metal, there’s always further improvements to be made.”
Designcenter Solid Edge can also flatten complex, deep-drawn or sculpted surfaces using physics (specifically, finite element analysis) borrowed directly from NX.
Designcenter: More Than a Brand
The new Designcenter name unites Siemens’ design software family alongside Teamcenter, Opcenter, and Simcenter.
“It’s more than just a brand,” Dan emphasized. “Over the last few years, the NX and Solid Edge teams have worked as one organization, ensuring interoperability and shared development.”
Under the Designcenter umbrella, Siemens is also developing NX X Essentials, a browser-native platform. Users can perform lightweight modeling, simulation, and even basic CAM directly in a web browser—no installation required.
“It’s completely compatible with our desktop products,” Dan said. “You can design from anywhere or give access to parts of your business—purchasing, the shop floor—that don’t need a full CAD license.”
Flexible Licensing: Tokens Instead of Modules
One of the less flashy but potentially most consequential changes in 2026 is Siemens’ new Value-Based Licensing (VBL) system. Instead of purchasing individual modules—such as simulation, piping, or electrical—customers buy a pool of tokens.
“You can use any Solid Edge product you want,” Dan explained. “Run simulation one day, electrical the next. Tokens aren’t consumed; they’re checked out and returned. It’s flexible, enterprise-friendly licensing.”
The system encourages exploration. “If you think simulation might help, you don’t need to justify a whole new license,” he said. “Just use your tokens.”
Listening to Customers, Face to Face
Dan attributes Solid Edge’s staying power in the face of direct competition with market-leading SolidWorks to a culture of customer focus and engagement. For three decades, Siemens has hosted in-house beta weeks in Huntsville, bringing users from around the world for direct feedback.
“We sit down with them—Germans one week, Japanese another week, there’s a Teamcenter week—and talk about what they need,” Dan said. “That customer-centric philosophy keeps us grounded.”
It’s also why Dan is comfortable inviting comparison with SolidWorks. “We’ll go head-to-head with anyone,” he said. “No question.”
The Enduring Spirit of Innovation
Solid Edge’s influence has always exceeded its market share. Its team invented SmartStep, pioneered Synchronous Technology, and introduced feature-based sheet-metal modeling—concepts that reshaped mainstream CAD.
Now, with Designcenter Solid Edge 2026, Dan believes the same spirit is guiding Siemens into an era defined by AI and collaboration.
“Fifteen years ago, people said CAD was dead,” he said. “They said everything would move to PDM, that we’d done all we could. They couldn’t have been farther from the truth.”
He pauses, then adds with conviction: “Between AI, the cloud, and collaboration, this is the most exciting time for CAD since it was first invented.”
Analysis: A Calculated Reinvention
Designcenter Solid Edge 2026 represents more than another annual update; it is Siemens stating that it is committed to staying with the times, which these days means making maximal use of AI.
Indeed, Siemens is catching up with Autodesk and PTC’s Onshape, both of which have introduced AI copilots, and at least one (Autodesk) has automatically claimed to be able to produce 70-80% of a drawing automatically. Siemens Digital Industries Software made it clear at Realize, the company’s annual user and media event, that it truly understood the AI needs of engineers with “industrial AI,” not to be confused with the AI available to the masses. If Siemens indeed invests significantly in R&D to implement AI across its applications, Solid Edge stands to benefit. Though the Solid Edge team in Huntsville, Alabama, is small and nimble, known for its innovation, showing flashes of brilliance with Synchronous Technology and sheet metal magic, it has no match for the R&D available to the NX team at company headquarters in Plano, Texas. And as we know from AI spending by companies building AI for the masses, combined AI-related spending is estimated to be about $155 billion in 2025, according to The Guardian, or about 25 times Autodesk’s annual revenue!
The Designcenter unification strategy may be Siemens warmly embracing the Solid Edge team, which, in years past, was Cinderella to her stepsisters. This could come at no better time when mainstream MCAD products, of which Solid Edge is, if not the most popular, perhaps the most capable, could absorb and run with AI innovations developed by the mother ship.