CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
8 March 2007
Product News
Alibre and FreeDesign Offer Form-and-Function Bundle
Alibre, Inc., and FreeDesign, Inc, jointly announced the bundle release of Alibre Design Expert and FreeDimension. The double software package combines Alibre's most advanced parametric solid modeler with FreeDesign's revolutionary new method for 3D surface creation. Both applications have earned a reputation for easy accessibility and powerful functionality at a highly affordable price. The bundle, which retails for $1595 in North America, represents the most advanced 3D design capabilities available in the price range.
The combination of the two technologies allows even novice users to create virtually any organic shape with FreeDimension's intuitive and easy-to-learn controls. Curved 3D surfaces from FreeDimension can then be readily passed to Alibre's solid modeling environment. Surface creations may then be directly combined with solid mechanical parts and assemblies, plotted as detailed 2D drawings, rendered with 3D effects, or exported to common manufacturing and document formats. The power to create mechanical designs incorporating complex organic shapes was once only available to an elite group of design professionals. The bundle makes these capabilities accessible to literally anyone.
"FreeDesign and Alibre are breaking down the final barriers to pervasive 3D," said Greg Milliken, CEO of Alibre, Inc. "Never before has free-form design and parametric CAD been available at this price point. Free Design and Alibre have a common vision of making great 3D design software available to all. This bundle is perfect for marine design, mold making, jewelry and consumer products -- anything that requires organic shapes, precise mechanical components, or the combination of the two."
Free Design's free-form modeler is only one of the many new additions in Alibre Design Expert 9.2, which becomes available worldwide in late March. As Alibre's top of the line of solid modeling offerings, Expert 9.2 gives a full array of design features that handle all aspects of product development: conceptualization, presentation, and output to production.
FreeDesign's patented N-Sided Surfacing (NSS) technology represents a revolutionary method of surface generation and control. NSS frees the user from the restrictions of 4-sided surfaces prevalent with NURBS and Bezier methods.
"FreeDimension's NSS is radical in its simplicity," says Dick Sowar, CEO of FreeDesign. "It used to be that curves and surfaces were the most troublesome aspect in CAD. In FreeDimension, surfaces simply flow between whatever curves are necessary to define shape, and curves are so easily manipulated, that even a child can use it. FreeDimension frees the imagination, and Alibre Design is the easy, practical way to get those creations into manufacturable form."
For more information and for a free trial of Alibre Design, please visit http://www.alibre.com .
A free 30-day trial of FreeDimension is available for downloaded at http://www.freedesign-inc.com/ .
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