Many industry pundits are talking about the potential for a very low-cost modelling system, but there’s been a system pushing cost-effectiveness to its limit for sometime.

Alibre has been causing quite a stir in the CAD community of late. The company’s decision to freely distribute a version of its system for free once a user has registered has raised the eponymously titled systems’ profile and many are looking to see how the company is taking advantage of this initiative to grow its market presence. So with this in mind, it’s long over due for MCAD to take a look at the full commercial, licensed system and what it can do.

As with many systems, Alibre has been developed for the Windows platform, but unlike many other CAD systems which started out early, has always been pushed as a collaborative system as much as it has for its geometry creation tools. What we’re going to do is look at the core part, assembly and drawing functionality, then investigate how the collaboration tools enhance those tools to make team-working more efficient.

When you start up Alibre (I tested version 9.0), you’re presented with the Alibre Home window. From here, you can use collaboration tools, pick up messages and inspect your data – but in the first instance, this is also the first port of call when looking to create a part, assembly or drawing. As is common in many systems, it’s worth noting that Parts are split between standard solid models and sheet metal – as your selection of sheet metal means that you are working with uniform thickness, sheet-metal type parts with all the k-factor, bend radii data predefined. If we look at creating a basic part first, then the mists should clear somewhat.

Alongside the base level part modelling tools, Alibre also includes some specific tools for the modelling of Sheet metal parts, and allows users to work with the geometry in both a folded (as produced state) and a flattened form.

When you start up a new part file, you’re presented with a pretty standard user interface. A large modelling window dominates things, around which you’ll find the usual array of file operations, pull-down menus (providing access to the full suite of commands), a model history tree and the usual run of toolbars for both profile sketching and feature creation. If you’re familiar with the likes of Inventor, Solid Edge, and SolidWorks, then you’ll be immediately familiar with the Alibre workflow. It uses both a combination of sketch planes, context-based sketches and edge extraction to create your part geometry. One thing to point out is that Alibre is a predominantly solids-based modelling system. While it does support the handling of imported surface geometry, it doesn’t really allow you to create surface-entities from scratch – but for many, this is exactly what they’re looking for.

Sketching

Sketching is done dynamically, with the various types of lines, circles, arcs and splines/curves, created using a combination of direct input (for which dynamic, real-time feedback is provided in terms of automatically detecting parallelism and other relationships). Alongside the real-time relationships/constraints, it’s possible to create additional constraints and parametric relationships within your sketch. Sketching also includes a number of predefined, commonly used profiles, which you can create either single instances of or use the built-in patterning tools. This should be useful but the patterning tools built into the predefined features (such as slots, holes, etc) can’t be used to create features themselves, so you have to create your first instance, then pattern the solid feature, rather than creating the pattern at the sketch level – which adds needless additional steps.

3D modelling

Alibre is a predominantly solids-based modelling tool and as such, its 3D feature selection options are the usual array of extrudes, revolves, lofts, sweeps and such. Operations are split into the addition and removal of material (so you have Extrude and Extruded Cut) and offer a lot of options within a single dialog, such as adding draft at the time of creation, extent limits (such as to geometry, blind, offset, mid-plane etc). Alongside the standard features, the system includes Boolean operations, standards-based holes, fillets/chamfers and shells. The workflow for part modelling, whether singularly or in-context within an assembly is to use a sketch or profile to drive the creation of features, so a large part of that always revolves around the use of existing geometry either within the same part or within another part in an assembly as reference.

As with most other applications, Alibre allows you to create in-context references to edges and such, giving you the option of whether or not to maintain those as associative (so updates are handled automatically). On the subject of assemblies, these are built using the methods that will be familiar to many readers. For those that have yet to make the move to 3D, assembly models are typically built up using a range of constraints that match up common features in separate parts, whether that’s a concentric relationship, one of alignment of two surfaces or faces, or an offset between components. Alibre allows you to create these constraints with a great deal of ease and of course, they’re fully editable through the assembly structure browser once created.

Sheet metal

Alongside the base level part modelling tools, Alibre also includes some specific tools for the modelling of Sheet metal parts. As is normal, these are based on the knowledge that every piece within a sheet metal part is of a uniform thickness, and depending on the material, has a specific bend radii and K-factor. The tools currently available assist with the process of creating the initial blank, then adding additional flanges, bends, dimples (based on user drawn profiles), user defined features (such as stamped or punched forms) – and the tools you need to create the closed corners you need for fabrication. Of course, one of the real benefits of 3D-based sheet metal design is the ability to work with the geometry in both a folded (as produced state) and a flattened form - and Alibre allows you to do both. Naturally, both states of the model are available when you need to start the documentation process – which leads me nicely onto the next section – draughting and documentation tools.

Draughting

The draughting tools within Alibre work in two modes. Firstly, it’s entirely possible to use the system just as you would any other 2D draughting tool (such as AutoCAD, ME10, Vellum etc). The system gives you the usual array of both geometry sketching tools as well as parametric dimensions, constraints and such – so if you’re looking to ease yourself into the 3D workflow, making edits to existing 2D drawing data, then you have all the standards-based tools you’d expect. But alongside this, and perhaps more interestingly for those looking at Alibre as a move away from a 2D driven workflow, the tools available to create highly accurate 2D drawings-based on a full 3D model, are impressively well developed.

Alibre Design includes basic data management functionality that allows a design team to share, manage and control access to design information as its created.

You start with a drawing sheet size, define drawn by, date and drawing number information, then begin the process of laying out the drawing views. You select the model (part or assembly, sheet metal flat or folded etc), then select the views you want that are derived from that initial view – all within a single dialog, which makes the whole process much easier. If required, once the orthographic and isometric drawing views are placed within the sheet and positioned, you can start to add additional views, such as broken views, sections, details and the like. Once these are in place, you then start to add dimensions and annotations using a pretty comprehensive set of GD and T entities. Drawing files can contain multiple sheets and can reference different parts and sub-assemblies, so you can create a single managed file that contains all of your product documentation. In terms of documenting assemblies, you have ballooning tools and bill of materials creation, these are intelligently linked to the driving 3D model, and as such, any changes made (as with all areas of the system) dimensions, table entities and other annotations are propagated into the drawing sheets where appropriate

Collaboration

One of the most interesting chunks of technology within Alibre, particularly when compared to other systems (even more expensive ones) are the collaborative working tools that are included in all forms of the system. These allow users to connect using the web to conduct design conferencing, red-line and mark-up interactively. In today’s geographically dispersed, outsourced world, the ability for the user of a design system to connect to other parties within that chain means that tasks and problems can be resolved much more quickly than has traditionally been the case. This is because both parties are referencing the same data, using the same tools – which always makes the process more efficient.

In conclusion

Those readers that have already made their investment with a 3D system, whatever that system might be, may read through this review and think “so what?” – and to be honest, I couldn’t blame them. In reality, the tools offered by Alibre (aside from the collaboration tools) are pretty much the minimum you would expect to find in any other system. On a functionality-basis, Alibre is at the point that systems like SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Inventor were at a couple of years ago. It is a capable system but is pretty much limited to solid geometry – aside from handling imported data, surfacing doesn’t get a look in. There are also a few things relating to workflow that could very easily be solved with a little attention to make the whole process more cohesive and easy to learn (through intuition rather than training) and in today’s environment, the ability to dive in and learn a system or expand your knowledge ‘on the job’ is essential.

Of course, as with anything in this world, you get exactly what you pay for. I don’t want to give the impression that Alibre is a reduced functionality system (which it isn’t), but it does have a specific set of tools (for solid modelling) and your decision to take on a tool like this should always bear that in mind. After all, development of these systems requires a lot of people and a lot of effort – so

if a company isn’t making as much cash as its competitors, it doesn’t have the resources to develop as much.

But, in the final reckoning, what differentiates Alibre from its competition is one thing - cost. This system is currently available in two forms. Alibre Design Xpress is free once you've registered and can be used on a commercial basis - although you do need to be connected to the web. The paid-for version costs around the eight hundred quid mark, including the first year's maintenance. After that, annual maintenance is at industry standard 18% covering support and updates - and in anyone's books that a very reasonable price. What this means is that users can adopt the system, get the full functionality and maintain that license for under the typical cost of annual subscription for many other 'entry-level' systems.

But this shouldn’t be seen as criticism – in fact, it’s a bonus. By keeping the system within a specific price bracket, Alibre is offering a very cost-effective route to a 3D modelling workflow and for a very large number of users, the functionality available within Alibre Design will allow them to do their job, develop their products and manage the process. After all, even users of more established 3D modelling systems must look at all of the new features and functions crammed into every release and wonder if they’ll ever use them.

If I had to sum Alibre up, as I said before, ‘you get what you pay for’ and in this specific instance, that’s a very capable tool that anyone looking to move to 3D should investigate to see if it satisfies their needs – and in a large number of cases, it’ll do exactly that.