It’s a video. 40 minutes of Alibre modeling fun and features coming out in the future version of Alibre. No need to cover the eyes of your children. It’s family fun for the future of 3D CAD.
The Alibre V12 Sneek Peak is described as a ‘stellar release with tons of little tiny things.’ It shows what features have improved, what users are asking for and most of all how it differs from everything else on the market. If you want to save yourself 40 minutes, we’ve whipped together the new features discussed and look into what’s being focused on.
The Big, Bad, New Features of Alibre V12
Tell me what you think when you look at these new features. Wish you had them? V12 is bringing the expectation of a full-featured CAD tool to all the users anxious for easier part creation and assembly management. Drawing aren’t left out either. These are some of the key point discussed in the video.
- Large Assembly Performance (better above 1500+ parts)
- Going int Edit Part mode
- Changing Display Speed
- Animated part transition
- Default colors for parts/features
- Sketch Text Tool
- Snap/Constraint settings
- Numeric input for sketch dimensions
- Relation (DOF) callouts
- 360 degree pattern setting
- Edit Section View
- Custom Toolbars
- Combined Move/Rotate
- Multi-Flange Sheet Metal profile creation
- Improved Large Data set handling/editing in drawings
- Icon preview of files in Explorer (maybe)
Getting Up To Par
As with some new features in Pro-E Wildfire 5.0, a lot of the features being added in Alibre V12 bring it closer to the level of functionality within other 3D CAD programs like SolidWorks, SolidEdge and SpaceClaim. A lot of these new features I just can not imagine not having. Good for future upgraders of Alibre.
The focus is clearly on making it easier for users to create sketches, parts and sheet metal. Editing parts, assemblies and drawings is a big part of this process so the video demo display using the context menus to make each step go quicker. While we haven’t played with the new version, it seems Alibre continues to put in the effort to maintain their presence in the industry. The one thing I wish they would update are the circa 1999 toolbar icons. Now that’s important.
Creating Assembly Patterns in Alibre V12
One feature I do especially like (and already exists) is the ‘Suggest a New Feature’ button (the font they use for that sure looks a lot like Agency FB, see the SolidSmack Logo… hmmm) at the bottom of the Home (New file) window.
It goes to a Alibre feedback site on the web powered by UserVoice. That’s a convenient way to get some quick user feedback and a forum that looks to have been used quite a bit by the Alibre development team.
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