Alibre Design Expert

Powerful, Yet Easy-to-Use 3D CAD Software That's Affordable

Complete mechanical design software for the world's most demanding ideas, yours included.
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Have the confidence to tackle projects of nearly any scale.

Alibre Design Overview

Alibre Design is powerful 3D CAD software suitable for mechanical design, prototyping, and manufacturing.
Easy to learn and use with straightforward workflows, built on a beautiful modern interface.
Parametric and rules-based modeling of complex mechanical systems with multiple ways to manage complexity.
Dedicated tools for modeling, sheet metal, assembly, drawing, rendering, and data/logic-driven design.
Industry-leading interoperability and a native, Python-based scripting language for automation.
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What's Inside Alibre Design

Alibre Design has been refined over 24 years to help you to drive innovation across your design, manufacturing, and marketing processes.

Awesome User Interface

Clean, easy to learn, efficient, and customizable. We've spent a lot of effort on the UI and UX to ensure your modeling experience is second to none. From meticulous icon design to color blind mode to obsessing over the layout of the tools - we've thought of it all.
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Work with anyone, powered by industry-leading interoperability

Import Formats

Solidworks
Inventor
ProE/CREO
Catia
Solidedge
NX
Rhino
STEP, SAT, IGES, Parasolid
DWG, DXF, SVG

Export Formats

STEP, SAT, IGES
STL, OBJ
Parasolid
ZPR
JT
DWG (2D), DXF (2D)
SVG
PDF (2D & 3D)

Extreme precision for demanding component modeling

Efficient and versatile sketching

Sketching is critical to 3D component creation, and a great sketching toolset makes all the difference. Equation-driven design, color coded problem areas, automatic sketch health analysis, and a rich feature set all keep you confidently moving forward.
Learn moreExplore Sketching

3D modeling of complex components

Alibre Design simplifies complexity with intuitive tools that let you create intricate shapes and geometries with ease, offering a more streamlined workflow. Iterations are a breeze - modify and refine designs with just a few clicks, facilitating a more efficient and creative design process.
Learn moreExplore Modeling

Full-design (assembly) modeling

Fully represent finished designs in every detail. Relationships between parts allow realistic movement. Quickly analyze the design with realtime section views and other tools.
Learn moreExplore Assembly Modeling

Eliminate human error by leveraging data-driven design

Explore Data Management

Parametric Modeling

Precise, repeatable modeling based on design variables that are easy to change

Design-wide Variables

Store important variables in a standalone file and drive multiple designs simultaneously

Spreadsheet-driven Design

Link models to Excel documents and drive geometry directly from spreadsheets

Dynamic Model Generator

Dynamic configurators that presents options only within your data and business logic

Model Variant Management

Create multiple variants ("Configurations") of models to dramatically reduce duplication

Component Metadata

Each component has robust metadata that can be shown on manufacturing drawings

Material Library

A robust and extensible library makes assigning materials super fast

Thread Library

Share an extensible thread library across the organization for standards adherence

Standard Part Library

Coming soon. A wide variety of components from ANSI, ISO, DIN, JIS. and GB

Powerful and accurate sheet metal modeling toolset

Perfect, repeatable sheet metal 

Take the guesswork out of sheet metal design - Alibre Design handles the math and flat patterns for you automatically.
Explore Sheet Metal Modeling

From simple to complex

Most sheet metal parts are pretty basic, but if you need to get more exotic you'll have the power - including complex shape transitions.

Automatic flat patterns

Instantly view the flat pattern of your design at any time in the design process to ensure no overlaps and good manufacturability.

Manufacturing drawings

Turn the 3D form or flat pattern form into a 2D drawing instantly - send it right to your laser cutter or manufacturer.

Accurate, beautiful drawings for production, patent, and manuals

Explore 2D Drawings

Easily created, always updated 

2D drawings are based on 3D models, and model changes propagate automatically into all views, annotations, and dimensions.

Capture every manufacturing requirement

A comprehensive suite of detailing and view management tools efficiently creates an exacting representation of any model for production or patent.
Explore 2D Drawings

Bill of Materials

A customizable BoM can show many kinds of data, and exploded views with balloon callouts makes referencing easy.
Explore Bill of Materials

Standards adherence

A robust templating system lets you customize once and deploy across many drawings in a consistent and predictable way.

Make manuals & instructions

Easily make assembly instructions by defining custom views and exploded states in the 3D model and consuming them in a drawing.

Cutting Profiles

Output clean cutting profiles for laser cutters and CNC in a variety of formats.

Impress with images that pop

Explore Rendering

Turn models into outstanding images

Drag-and-drop materials make it easy to quickly get amazing results. Customize and tweak to your heart's content. Output to any resolution using CPU or GPU.
Explore Rendering

For web, manuals, brochures, bids - you name it

Use renders to effectively communicate your message, whether it's about the merits of your product or how it should be assembled. Sell more effectively with captivating product images.
Explore Rendering

Automate and design with Python-based Alibre Script

Explore Scripting

Your automation superpower

Grab a coffee while Alibre Script rips through tasks with easy-to-learn code.
Explore Scripting

Create and modify models

Repetitive modeling tasks can transferred into Alibre Script and run at the click of a button, saving significant time.
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Access & use data sources

Access many third party data sources like Excel, CSV, Access, SQL, web data, or manually entered data. Use this data to drive geometry.
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Build logic into designs

Code simple or exotic design logic based on what a user has chosen in previous steps. "If radius is between 6 and 9, holecount = 5," for example.
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Math-intensive geometry

Some geometry is really math-intensive and hard to create manually. It can be much easier to generate this geometry using code.
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Create a user interface

Easily create graphical user interfaces that make user inputs for data and options and use the user selections in code.
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Automate tedious tasks

Need to export every file in a directory as STEP and STL? Mass update metedata for components in an assembly? Script makes it easy.
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Design Applications With the Alibre Design API

Explore API
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