Modelling packages make challenge to sceptics

An Alibre product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 23, 2003

Alibre has released a new version of its low-cost design application, Alibre Design 6.0, as well as a new advanced application, Alibre Design Professional.

Alibre has released a new version of its low-cost design application, Alibre Design 6.0, as well as a new advanced application, Alibre Design Professional.

Alibre Design is the company's low-cost, 3D parametric solid modelling application for mechanical CAD.

Due to the value added by the new features, the price of Alibre Design will increase to $695 in the USA and Canada from 1st June 2003.

Alibre Design Professional is an extended version that includes several advanced addons, and is priced at $995 in the USA and Canada.

Based on the strengths of the new releases, the company has also launched the Alibre Challenge, which dares trial users to prove that their designs cannot be created in Alibre Design Professional, but can be done in SolidWorks, Solid Edge or Autodesk Inventor.

Free 30-day trials of Alibre Design are available at the Alibre website.

Alibre Design 6.0 adds numerous new and enhanced features, including: integrated sheet metal design, supporting fold and unfold, tabs, flanges, hems, jogs, cuts and dimples; an enhanced tool to analyse and heal imported sketches, improving the ability for users of CAD systems like AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT to migrate their designs to 3D; rich NURBS curves, including import/export support; a catalogue feature that enables users to create a catalogue of sketches and features for reuse; numerous improvements to the equation editor dialog box; new helical features, such as cuts and bosses, to create springs, threads, ball screws etc; enhanced feature patterning and mirroring capabilities; support for printing colour 3D images; patterns of parts can be inserted in assemblies, for faster modelling; light assembly loading, improves performance for more efficient modelling of large assemblies; support for threaded holes and callout annotations; the ability to display and use part and subassembly reference geometry in assemblies; support for inserting images, such as JPGs, in drawing sheets; and an enhanced contacts list that includes a Messenger-like status indicator, the ability to search for users by name and notification when users are added to other users' contact lists.

Alibre Design Professional adds these advanced features: the Alibre Part Library, featuring millions of standard and manufacturer-specific components; Alibre PhotoRender, to generate high-quality photorealistic images of both native and imported designs; bundled Algor DesignCheck finite element analysis software, to perform a first-pass engineering analysis, evaluate the results and present them professionally; and bundled MecSoft VisualMill 3.0 CAM software.

Assistance in exploring all the new features is available from the Alibre Assistant, a unique support tool that gives all customers access to live, online guidance from Alibre support representatives.

Gary Hannah, Senior Design Engineer for B/E Aerospace, offered these observations: "Assembly move performance is really smooth now that I can toggle off the auto-regenerate function - a big thumbs-up, it gives a much, much better display of assemblies.

The helix feature is great, too.

I will be using it regularly.

Also, it's invaluable to be able to toggle sketch geometry to reference geometry - another big thumbs-up.

The sketch analyse tool is a big plus - I've already used that several times.

The catalogue feature to reuse sketches is going to be big - really useful for us.

In short, I'm really impressed with version 6.0.

It just keeps getting better".

"Our partnership with Alibre allows us to provide the Algor DesignCheck FEA software to a wide range of users, who may be getting their first introduction to finite element analysis", said Teresa Anania, Vice President of Operations for Algor.

"With Alibre Design Professional, users can begin applying FEA immediately and easily".

"We're very proud of Alibre Design 6.0 and Alibre Design Professional, and this milestone for our company", said J Paul Grayson, Alibre President and CEO.

"From customer input to our developers' innovations, this release is our finest ever, and it gives us solid footing next to other mid-range CAD products.

For Alibre Design Professional, we must recognise our partners, who enabled us to create a robust product that gives customers even more value, at a price that's still under $1000".