Design software comes with Acrobat 3D for free

Alibre has released Alibre Design 9.1 and also added a new bundle to its product line.

Alibre has released Alibre Design 9.1 and also added a new bundle to its product line.

The new bundle offers customers an additional $995 value by combining Adobe Acrobat 3D software with Alibre Design Expert for the standard Alibre Design Expert price of $1995.

In addition to the rich set of publishing and collaboration features offered by Acrobat 3D and Adobe PDF, Alibre Design 9.1 includes new features, enhancements, and performance improvements.

Two new additions to the flagship Alibre Design Expert product include Alibre Motion and EngineersToolBox.

Alibre Motion provides integrated motion simulation and allows kinematic and dynamic analysis of designs with moving parts.

Users can add springs, dampers, motors, actuators, and prescribe kinematic motion or forces and torques, such as those generated by a motor or actuator in a real-world machine.

In addition, design constraints created when modelling an assembly are automatically mapped to corresponding motion constraints.

The new module is fully integrated into Alibre Design Expert, making it easier to use and increasing user productivity with seamless simulation.

Alibre Motion also eliminates the purchase of third-party motion modules, potentially saving thousands of dollars.

EngineersToolBox is a comprehensive solution library for engineering design and analysis.

This popular software features integrated computational modules that enable engineers and designers to quickly explore design solutions, evaluate virtual prototypes and make data-driven decisions to improve products.

The Engineers Toolbox consists of 34 modules covering domains such as solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and dynamics and controls All versions of Alibre Design 9.1 will also include the ability to publish directly to the de facto standard Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).

Alibre Design Professional and Expert will allow including animated exploded views and sequences of steps to help communicate design intent or document an assembly process.

All PDF files with 3D objects published with Alibre Design, including those with animation, can be viewed with free Adobe Reader software.

The bundle Alibre is offering consisting of Alibre Design Expert and Acrobat 3D makes it much easier to publish, share and collaborate on 3D designs with a broad audience beyond traditional CAD users.

Previously, high software costs, complex and difficult to learn 3D software and vendor-dependant formats limited 3D design and collaboration to only a very select group of CAD users and engineers in the detailed design phase.

Early-stage conceptual design and collaboration has been relegated to little more than back-of-the-napkin sketches, while later-stage technical publishing has required costly, vendor-specific solutions with only expensive corporate CAD systems as the only source for 3D data.

"As we have pushed down software cost, improved ease-of-use and increased functionality, we have seen customers utilising Alibre Design much earlier in the product life cycle, users who typically do not have regular access to their corporate standard CAD system", said Greg Milliken CEO of Alibre.

"More than 70% of a product's cost is committed in the earliest stages of the process, and as a result of the Acrobat 3D bundle, we have a unique solution that will help companies innovate more effectively at this critical stage".

With the new publishing features of version 9.1, once a model is built in Alibre Design, the user can save it as a PDF with 3D objects then, with Acrobat 3D, add information to the 3D model, format the layout, look and feel, and share it with others for review and comment.

Since the 3D objects in the PDF file are interactive, reviewers can rotate the models and, when enabled by Acrobat 3D, measure and section them using nothing more that the ubiquitous Adobe Reader.

This design sharing will allow changes to be made while still in the high-leverage, lower-cost concept design phase.

When combined with version 9.1 engineering analysis features like Alibre Motion and EngineersToolBox, designs can be more deeply analysed and verified by numerous stakeholders in the product development process, either external or internal.

"Our bundle with Acrobat 3D gives users everything they need to formalise and model concepts and innovations and then quickly and easily share them with a wide audience", continued Milliken.

"With Alibre Design conceptual designs can be created at the earliest stages of the process by any, and every, engineer, and with Acrobat 3D the designs can be easily communicated and collaborated on, optimally harnessing an organisation's creativity and knowledge to drive innovation".

"We're pleased to welcome Alibre to the Acrobat 3D Platinum Reseller programme", said Stephen Fehr, Director of Acrobat Sales, Adobe.

"Acrobat 3D enriches collaboration by enabling extended teams to use interactive, universal Adobe PDF documents to more quickly, securely and cost-effectively drive to completion critical communication processes that require 3D visualisation".

"Alibre's bundle of Acrobat 3D with Alibre Design Expert provides customers strong value and enables participants at every stage of the manufacturing process to communicate the visualisation benefits of true 3D parametric solid modelling through Adobe Reader and PDF".

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