Press Release

New Version of Alibre Design and
New Extended Professional Version
Set High Standards at a Low Price

RICHARDSON, Texas, April 16, 2003 -- Alibre Inc. today announced the latest release of its low-cost design application, Alibre Design 6.0, as well as a new advanced application,
Alibre Design Professional.

Alibre Design is the company's low-cost, 3D parametric solid modeling application for mechanical computer-aided design (CAD). Due to the value added by the new features, the price of Alibre Design will increase to $695 in the United States and Canada*, effective June 1. Alibre Design Professional is an extended version that includes several advanced add-ons, and is priced at $995 in the United States and Canada.

Based on the strengths of the new releases, the company also launched the Alibre Challenge, which dares trial users to prove that their designs cannot be created in Alibre Design Professional, but can be done in these comparable systems: SolidWorks, Solid Edge or Autodesk Inventor. Details and rules are posted at www.alibre.com/promos/challenge. Free 30-day trials of Alibre Design are available at the Alibre Web site.

Alibre Design 6.0 adds numerous new and enhanced features, including

• Integrated sheet metal design, supporting fold and unfold, tabs, flanges, hems, jogs, cuts and dimples.
• Enhanced tool to analyze and heal imported sketches, improves the ability for users of CAD systems like AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT to migrate their designs to 3D.
• Rich NURBS curves, including import/export support.
• Catalog feature, enables users to create a catalog of sketches and features for reuse.
• Numerous improvements to the Equation Editor dialog box, make it easier to control parameters including integration with Excel for spreadsheet-driven designs.
• New helical features, such as cuts and bosses, to create springs, threads, ball screws, etc.
• Enhanced feature patterning and mirroring capabilities, make modeling easier.
• Support for printing color 3D images.
• Patterns of parts can be inserted in assemblies, for faster modeling.
• Light assembly loading, improves performance for more efficient modeling of large assemblies.
• Support for threaded holes and callout annotations.
• Ability to display and utilize part and subassembly reference geometry in assemblies.
• Support for inserting images, such as JPGs, in drawing sheets.
• Enhanced Team Design experience now supports interactive sketching.
• Enhanced Contacts list includes a Messenger-like status indicator, the ability to search for users by name and notification when users are added to other users' contact lists.

• Alibre Part Library, featuring millions of standard and manufacturer-specific components.
• Alibre PhotoRender, to generate high-quality photorealistic images of both native and imported designs.
• Bundled ALGOR DesignCheck FEA (finite element analysis) software, to perform a first-pass engineering analysis, evaluate the results and present them professionally.
• Bundled MecSoft VisualMill 3.0 CAM software, runs for one year and allows users to export designs directly from Alibre Design to Visual Mill, define tool paths and run simulations, then make the parts with their CNC machine. Includes basic 2-1/2-axis milling, 3-axis milling, drilling and "All-Post" technology.

Gary Hannah, senior design engineer for B/E Aerospace, offered these observations: "Assembly move performance is really smooth now that I can toggle off the Auto-Regenerate function -- a big thumbs-up, it gives a much, much better display of assemblies. The helix feature is great, too. I will be using it regularly. Also, it's invaluable to be able to toggle sketch geometry to reference geometry -- another big thumbs-up. The Sketch analyze tool is a big plus -- I've already used that several times. The catalog feature to reuse sketches is going to be big -- really useful for us. In short, I'm really impressed with version 6.0. It just keeps getting better!"

"After waiting for Alibre Design Professional, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning now that I've played around with version 6.0 -- the sketch healer is fantastic," said James F. Newman, prototype coordinator for ARRIS.

"Version 6.0 of Alibre Design and Alibre Design Professional represent a new level of price versus performance in the MCAD industry," said Joe Greco, author and engineering consultant. "Alibre Design 6.0 offers new sketching and modeling enhancements, including sheet metal tools that I found to be powerful and easy to use, that are usually only found in mid-range systems such as Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks. Alibre Design Professional is packed with a variety of additional functionality including the ability to create professional renderings, perform engineering analysis and generate tool paths with only a few mouse clicks, as well as a huge library of standard parts."

"Our partnership with Alibre allows us to provide the ALGOR DesignCheck FEA software to a wide range of users, who may be getting their first introduction to finite element analysis," said Teresa Anania, vice president of operations for ALGOR, Inc. "With Alibre Design Professional, users can begin applying FEA immediately and easily."

"We're very proud of Alibre Design 6.0 and Alibre Design Professional, and this milestone for our company," said J. Paul Grayson, Alibre president and CEO. "From customer input to our developers' innovations, this release is our finest ever, and it gives us solid footing next to other mid-range CAD products. For Alibre Design Professional, we must recognize our partners, who enabled us to create a robust product that gives customers even more value, at a price that's still under $1,000."

Alibre redefines professional solid modeling with the low-cost Alibre Design application for 3D parametric solid modeling. Alibre Design lets designers, engineers and their associates create 3D models and 2D associative drawings, and its integrated online tools let users share and edit product designs from different CAD applications, and collaborate in real time using precise design data. These tools also allow for advanced support and training directly from the online Alibre Assistant. Additionally, the application's support for open data standards such as STEP provides a CAD-neutral environment. Founded in 1997, Alibre Inc. is privately funded and based in Richardson, Texas. For more information, visit www.alibre.com or call (972) 671-8492.

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Alibre and Alibre Design are trademarks of Alibre Inc. ALGOR is a trademark of ALGOR, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective holders.