Press Release

Alibre Design the New CAD Platform for Collaboration:

Richardson, TX — January 25, 2005 — The Open Prosthetics Project has adopted the Alibre Design 3D parametric modeler as the CAD standard for industry-wide collaboration.

On the project’s website, medical product designers can post new ideas for prosthetic devices as CAD files, which are then available to the public free of charge. Prosthetic users or other designers can download the CAD data, customize or improve upon the prosthesis, and repost the modifications to the web site. Users are free to take 3D models to a fabricator and have the hardware built for less cost than buying a manufactured limb.

Founded by members of the Durham, North Carolina industrial design firm Tackle Design, the nonprofit enterprise selected Alibre Design as the standard CAD system for all the shared design documents. Although the Tackle Design team traditionally modeled in SolidWorks, the designers moved to Alibre Design for the collaborative project, because Alibre offers a fully functional CAD modeler for free download. This allows amputees, prosthetists (doctors who custom-fit prostheses), and engineers of medical technology to view, modify and further develop the 3D models without the barrier of cost.

Alibre’s free product, Alibre Design Xpress, is not just a CAD viewer. Users have full capability to design parametric parts and assemblies and create associative 2D drawings, which enable forum participants to make alterations or additions to a device. Alibre Design Xpress users also enjoy the option of adding on features for more advanced modeling or larger assemblies for an affordable price. The parametric solid modeling software is also remarkably easy to learn. New users having no prior CAD experience can usually model the parts they need after just a few online tutorial lessons.

Besides lower costs for artificial limbs, the members of the Open Prosthetic Project hope to rejuvenate creativity into a field that has not had any major innovations since the 1940's, despite wide strides in technology elsewhere in the medical world. The online forum allows designers to borrow ideas from each other, as well as take suggestions from the amputees that use the products on a daily basis, with an end goal of making more comfortable, capable, and affordable prosthetics.

According to founding member Kevin Webb, Alibre Design is the perfect platform for open collaboration of ideas. “Using SolidWorks would be a barrier, because we couldn't share 3D information with people who do not have a $6,000 piece of software. Alibre enables us to collaborate with other designers that don't have SolidWorks available to them. What the industry needs is a tool for people to exchange, work on, and share 3D models.”

The public, non-profit nature of the project, says co-founder Chuck Messer, would challenge the current business model of the industry, which has neglected research and development in prosthetics for decades, mainly because the market of amputees is so small, with only 50,000 arm amputees in the United States.

In sectors of the economy where R&D does not invest, new product ideas usually come from the users themselves, according to Messer. “What you have in the prosthetics industry as well as other narrow markets is a lot of user innovators. A user innovator takes a high-end piece of equipment and then modifies it for custom use. The companies who supply that equipment will eventually embrace those innovations by the individual.” The Open Prosthetics Project incorporates user innovators into the design community. “Amputees are highly motivated to improve their situation and can contribute a great deal to the design process,” says Messer.

Greg Milliken, CEO of Alibre, has seen the Alibre product fill the gap for the needs of user innovators across industries. "The free CAD phenomenon has really caught on with user innovators -- people who have great ideas for a product, or a modification of a current product. Previously, they might not have the tools to take action, but now with Alibre Design Xpress, anyone can get their ideas produced," says Milliken. "The Open Prosthetics Project is a great example on how user innovations improve upon a product, which in turn greatly enhances the user's situation and quality of life."

With Alibre Design Xpress as a platform, Webb hopes to see open hardware collaboration develop into a successful and widely-used resource -- for prosthetics as well as for other industries where innovation has been neglected. "Once a CAD file becomes free for distribution and modification, says Webb, “it really becomes a living design at that point. It's not just a document; it's an active resource that's evolving over time."

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, making it possible for 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 is distributed worldwide.

Founded in 1997, Alibre Inc. is privately funded and based in Richardson, Texas.

For a free trial of Alibre Design, please visit www.alibre.com.

About the Open Prosthetics Project
Founded by members of the industrial design and research and development firm Tackle Design (www.tackledesign.com) of Durham, NC, the Open Prosthetics Project spurs useful innovations in the field of prosthetics by free exchange of hardware designs. An online collaboration between prosthetic users and designers, the project aims at making new technology available for anyone to use and customize. To learn how to participate, please visit www.openprosthetics.org.

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