Alibre- enabling 3D prototype printing
In a recent interview with Paul Grayon of Alibre Design, we discussed the emergence of 3D printing and its use in industrial design. Their software product is currently available in two version a personal level and a professional product.
Alibre – personal version
The software in available on the Windows platform and in the personal version, is targeted toward small businesses and indivutal artists. The products simplified learning curve and menu system has allowed it to be used and at events such as MakerFair. One of the dominant featuers is the use of the tool to create full 3D prototypes that are form and function compliant with both one-up creative artwork and industrial prototypes for consumer products. The availability of low cost 3D printers (sub $10K) and also the on-line service of 3D print houses has raised the interest in the tool.
Alibre Professional version
For the professional version the software supports 3D modeling tools such as Comsol, Mathmatica and Matlab to help analyze the design. It contains its own photo realistic rendering software as well as a finite element analysis tool and sheet metal panelization and bending optimizer. Using the standard STL format, the tool supports an interface with Autocad and other CAD tools as well as upload support to Shapeways online printing. The program has a documented and socketed API that supports a series of target market specific add-on tools (IDF interfce) for advanced analysis and design libraries.
The professional version has a motion analysis option and full CAM capability to insure manufacturability of the designs being created. The program runs on any comupter that supports Direct X, and has the standard acceleration for multi-core designs and computation with GPU acceleration. The GPU acceleration also speeds up the photo realistic rendering.
By bringing a simplified interface and advance modeling plus CAM capabilities, handset, mobile devices, tablet and other small/mid format devices can now be prototyped by small companies. They are able to do without the need for high price CNC services for first pass prototypes and finalizing mounting and stabilization placement of shells of form factor representative PC boards.
