Alibre Design. Alibre Design is a 3D parametric computer aided design (3D CAD) software suite developed by Alibre for Microsoft Windows.  Available in fifteen languages. Alibre is a brand of Alibre, LLC, a company based in Texas.

About 
Founded in 1997, Alibre began working closely with Microsoft in 1998 to develop the first web-based collaborative 3D design environment. The environment operated on a web-browser and allowed multiple users to work on the same design simultaneously.  Following this development, Alibre received a patent for "System and method for solid modeling," protecting their technologies for generating 3D geometries across a high bandwidth, distributed network. Alibre's purported aim in this development was to give businesses a cost-effective way to geographically distribute teams by enabling networked design environments without incurring large capital expenditures.

Alibre Design is based on the ACIS modeling kernel from Spatial, and a 2D and 3D constraint solving system from Siemens PLM, among other technologies. It allows users to create modeled representations of concepts to facilitate design and manufacturing, with 2D and 3D functionality.  Parametric solid modeling is driven by intelligent dimensions, meaning that the software automatically recomputes designs to accommodate changes to a single dimension, thereby maintaining the design's dimensional accuracy without necessitating manual adjustment of each dimension.

Products and features 
Alibre's products fall into two categories intended for different users and applications.  Alibre Design Professional has a basic set of features intended for users to get started with CAD, whereas Alibre Design Expert is a 3D and 2D modeling application suitable or intended for professional use.

Design tools 
Some of Alibre's key design tools include:
 Part modeling to define the geometry of individual components using a variety of powerful parametric feature creation tools
 Sheet metal modeling to define the geometry of individual components created from sheeted materials, such as sheet metal.  Software adheres to the real-world constraints of sheeted goods
 Assembly modeling to define relationships between individual components for final assembled designs.  Software analyzes the relation of components to assess real-word constraints and conditions, such as tangency or alignment
 Exploded assembly view creation and publishing animated sequences to 3D PDF
 Surface modeling to create organic surface models
 2D drafting to convert previously created 3D designs into 2D engineering drawings for manufacturing, patents and design communication. Extensive detailing tools available for creating professional drawings meeting major engineering drawing standards
 Bill of Material generation and inclusion in 2D drawings
 Integrated scripting environment using Python language

Data management 

 Versioning and rollback
 Search
 Where-used
 Extensible metadata
 Local or LAN installation

Technical support and training 
Alibre includes free training through a built-in help section in the software.  Free training is also available via online tutorials and videos.

To get direct technical assistance for Alibre products, customers must buy a software maintenance plan, which gives access to support via telephone or online ticket system.

Compatibility

Supported file formats for import 
 STEP AP203/214/242 (*.stp, *.step, *.ste)
 IGES (*.igs)
 ACIS (*.sat)
 Parasolid (*.x_t, *.x_b, *.xmt_txt, *xmt_bin)
 Rhino (*.3dm)
 AutoCAD DXF (*.dxf), DWG (*.dwg)
 SolidWorks Files (*.sldprt, *.sldasm)
 Autodesk Inventor (*.ipt, *.iam)
 Pro/Engineer (*.prt, *.asm, *.xpr, *.xas)
 Catia (*.CATPart, *.CATProduct)
 Solid Edge (*.par, *.psm, *.asm)
 NX (*.prt)
 Various image formats (bmp, dib, rle, gif, tif, tiff, png, jpg, jpeg, jfif, emf, wmf)

Supported file formats for export 
 STEP AP203/214/242 (*.stp, *.step, *.ste)
 IGES (*.igs)
 ACIS (*.sat)
 Parasolid (*.x_t)
 Stereolithography (*.stl)
 DXF (*.dxf), DWG (*.dwg)
 PDF and 3D PDF
 SolidWorks (*.sldprt, *.sldasm)
 JT (Jupiter Tessellation) Visualization format
 Luxion KeyShot (*.bip)
 OBJ (*.obj) - via an add-on in Alibre Design Expert

See also
 Comparison of computer-aided design editors

References

Further reading
 
  
  
 

Computer-aided design software
3D graphics software
Windows-only proprietary software
Product design
Computer-aided design software for Windows