New in Alibre Design 8.0

Part Modeling

Design Booleans

Associative feature and history-based Boolean operations -- useful for creating mold cavities, tools and dies.

• Support for addition/join, subtraction and intersection
• Multiple parts and assemblies can be used as "tools"

3D Sketch

Create freeform 3D curves to use in a variety of modeling operations including the creation and routing of piping or cables.

• Define constrained sweep paths for piping applications
• Define guide curves for lofting operations
• Associate 3D sketches to 2D sketches and solid bodies

Enhanced Sweep Operations

The Swept Boss and Swept Cut features provide new options for controlling how Sweep features use and interact with the sweep path. This enables more efficient modeling techniques and allows creation of the more complex geometry sometimes used in conceptual design or the design of consumer products.

• Sweep along contiguous model edges
• Sweep along multiple, contiguous sketch paths (2D & 3D)

Enhanced Loft Operations

The Loft Boss and Loft Cut now have options that provide more precise control over the resultant geometry, allowing the creation of more complex geometry.

• Loft with guide curves (2D & 3D)
• Loft to a point
• Provides more control of tangent conditions

Reference Surfaces

Modeling operations may use imported free-form surfaces from applications such as Rhino3D to create more complex solid models.

• Extrude and sweep features to reference surfaces
• Trim solid bodies with reference surfaces
• Thicken a reference surface into a solid body
• Define reference geometry (lines, arcs, etc.) using reference surfaces
• Constrain assembly components using reference surfaces

N-sided regular polygon tool

Easily create polygons with any number of sides.

Assembly Modeling

Enhanced assembly constraint management

Assembly constraints can now be grouped and managed by component. Simply select a part or sub-assembly to quickly see associated constraints.

2D Drawings

Enhancements to 2D drawings provide

• Support for images in drawing templates
• Improved flexibility when defining line styles and color definitions
• Improved ordinate dimensioning to center lines and marks
• Improved display of text associated with rotated surface finish symbols

User Interface

General

• Simplified multiple selection in commands assuming multiple objects (i.e., eliminate the need to hold the shift key when selecting multiple objects)
• Context-sensitive selection filtering: When an operation requires a certain object type, only that object type is selectable

Sketching

• Improved interaction with 2D sketches & sketch planes
• Display reference planes with shading for better visibility
• Reorient the view to the active sketch plane

Customization and API (Application Programming Interface)

Alibre Design 8.0 provides an API to automate and customize repetitive operations, and to improve integration with Add-on applications like FEA, CAM and standard part libraries.