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 modeling 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.
Additional enhancements to Alibre Design 9.1 include
-- 2D Drawings: dimension styles to efficiently manage corporate and
industry dimensioning standards
-- User Interface: cursor-centric zooming
-- Sheet Metal: Intuitive determination of Flange and Tab lengths
-- Performance: Improvements to both drawing and top down assembly design
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 utilizing 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 analyzed 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 formalize 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 upon, optimally harnessing an organization's creativity and knowledge to drive innovation."
"We're pleased to welcome Alibre to the Acrobat 3D Platinum Reseller program," 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 visualization. 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 visualization benefits of true 3D parametric solid modeling through Adobe Reader and PDF."
About Alibre
Alibre Inc. develops and markets Alibre Design™, the fastest growing parametric 3D solid modeling software for mechanical design and manufacturing. One-fifth the cost of comparable software, Alibre Design delivers quick ROI, ease-of-use, rich functionality and unique real-time support, and is enabling small and medium-sized businesses and workgroups to put 3D CAD on every engineer's desk, similar to utilities like Word or Excel. Alibre also delivers Alibre Design Xpress, the industry's only true 3D parametric modeler available free of charge. Alibre Design is available in thirteen languages and distributed worldwide. Founded in 1997, Alibre Inc. is privately funded and based in Richardson, Texas. For more information and for a free trial of Alibre Design, please visit www.alibre.com.
Media Contact: Peter Stevens Alibre Inc. Email Contact 972-671-8492