Get More From Your Alibre License: The Add-Ons That Take Your Designs Further

For many of our engineering and design clients, Alibre is the starting point for creating detailed 3D models, assemblies and production-ready designs. But the value of your CAD data doesn't have to stop when the design is finished. With the right add-ons, your Alibre workflow can extend into data management, simulation, visualisation, virtual reality and technical communication. Instead of relying on separate, disconnected processes, you can build a more complete design workflow around the Alibre environment.

The result is that far more can be done with the designs you have already created, helping you make better decisions, communicate ideas more effectively and reduce the time and cost associated with taking a product from concept to reality.

From CAD Model to Complete Design Workflow

A 3D CAD model contains far more information than just the shape of a component. It can become the foundation for testing how a product will perform, demonstrating how it works, communicating a design to a customer or managing the files associated with an entire project.

This is where Alibre add-ons can deliver significant additional value. For example, Alibre PDM can help engineering teams manage the growing amount of design data surrounding their products. SimWise for Alibre can turn designs into virtual prototypes that can be tested before anything is manufactured. And SimLab Composer can transform CAD models into professional visualisations, animations, interactive 3D PDFs and VR experiences.

Rather than treating these as separate pieces of software, it is useful to think of them as different ways of getting more value from the same Alibre design data.

Alibre PDM: Keeping Your Design Data Under Control

As a business grows, managing CAD files can become surprisingly difficult. A single product might contain hundreds of parts, assemblies, drawings and supporting documents. Add multiple designers, revisions and projects into the mix and a simple Windows folder structure can quickly become difficult to manage. This is where Alibre PDM can make a significant difference.

Alibre PDM provides tools for version control, file searching, where-used information, check-in and locking, metadata and rollback. It can also manage files beyond CAD, including documents such as PDFs, Word files and PowerPoint presentations.

PDM in action

An engineering company designed a machine consisting of hundreds of components. Six months after the machine entered production, an engineer discovered that a particular bearing housing needed to be modified. Without proper data management, it would have been extremely challenging to find every assembly in which that component was used.

With Alibre PDM, they could utilise the 'where-used' functionality to help identify where the component appeared, making it easier to understand the potential impact of the design change. Versioning also provided a record of previous designs and the ability to restore earlier versions where required.

The benefit wasn't just better file organisation, it meant fewer potential mistakes, less time searching for information and greater confidence that engineers were working with the correct version of a design. For growing engineering teams, that can become particularly valuable when several people need to work with the same design data.

SimWise Motion: Find Out If Your Design Actually Works

A CAD model can show you what a product looks like, but it doesn't necessarily tell you how it will behave when it starts moving. That's where SimWise Motion for Alibre comes in.

SimWise can use parts, assemblies and assembly relationships from Alibre to create a virtual prototype that can be tested on the computer. This allows engineers to investigate the movement and behaviour of a design before building physical hardware.

SimWise Motion in action

A well-established manufacturer needed to design an automated conveyor system. The CAD model showed that all of the components fit together, but they needed to know what would happen when the conveyor started moving. Would the mechanism travel far enough? Were any components colliding? Were the motors or actuators being subjected to excessive loads? Did the mechanism behave as expected throughout its operating cycle? Rather than building a prototype to discover the answers, motion simulation allowed the engineers to investigate these questions virtually.

This can be particularly useful for mechanisms such as robotic systems, conveyors, clamps, lifting mechanisms, linkages and automated machinery. The practical benefit is the ability to identify design problems much earlier, when they are easier and cheaper to fix.

For this client it hugely improved workflow efficiency, changing the design process from:

Design → Build → Test → Discover a problem → Redesign

to something closer to:

Design → Simulate → Improve → Build

That ultimately vastly reduced prototyping costs and shorten development times while giving the engineers greater confidence in the final design.

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SimWise FEA: Understand What Happens Under Load

Movement is only part of the story. A component may move exactly as intended and still fail when subjected to the forces it experiences in operation.

SimWise FEA for Alibre allows engineers to investigate how parts and assemblies respond to loads, heat and other operating conditions. Its capabilities include linear static stress, thermal analysis, normal modes, buckling and combined thermal/structural analysis.

SimWise FEA in Action

A manufacturer was designing a lifting bracket and needed to know whether it could safely support the required load. SimWise FEA allowed the engineer to investigate stresses and deformation before manufacturing the part. Areas experiencing particularly high stress could then be identified and the design modified accordingly. Instead of relying entirely on physical testing and conservative over-engineering, the simulations provided engineers with additional information to make more informed design decisions.

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SimWise 4D: See How Your Design Moves and How It Handles the Forces

For more complex products, simply understanding movement or static loads may not be enough. SimWise 4D combines motion simulation and FEA, allowing engineers to investigate the stresses generated by the dynamic loads occurring during operation. This is particularly useful because real products don't always experience loads in a simple, static way.

This powerful combination provides a much more realistic picture of how products/designs are likely to perform in operation.

This is particularly powerful for manufacturers developing machinery, automation equipment, mechanisms, robotics and other moving products, this can provide valuable insight before committing to a physical prototype.

SimLab Composer: Turn Engineering Models Into Sales and Communication Tools

Not every use of an Alibre model needs to involve engineering analysis, and for many of our customers challenges arise in communicating their designs to someone who isn't an engineer. A detailed CAD model may make perfect sense to the designer who created it, but a customer, sales team or non-technical decision-maker may struggle to understand it.

SimLab Composer provides a way to take Alibre models and turn them into more engaging visual and interactive content. Its Alibre integration maintains a link between the design and Composer, meaning changes made in Alibre can be reflected in Composer without having to repeatedly export and import the model. Composer supports applications including photorealistic rendering, animations, 3D PDF, VR and interactive visualisation.

SimLab Composer in Action: Sales and marketing

A SimLab user designed a new piece of industrial equipment, and rather than sending a customer a technical CAD file, they utilised SimLab to create a realistic rendered image showing the finished product, produced an animation demonstrating how it operated and provided an interactive 3D PDF that allowed the customer to explore the design. This meant that the CAD model isn't just an engineering document, it becomes a highly impactful sales and communication asset, which resulted in and marked increase in sales conversion for our client's complex product.

One Alibre Model, Many Different Applications

The real value of these add-ons is that they don't require you to start again with every new stage of the product development process. Your Alibre model can become the starting point for a much wider range of activities:

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Alibre + Add-On	What It Adds	Real-World Benefit
Alibre PDM	Data and document management	Better control, fewer errors and easier collaboration
SimWise Motion	Movement simulation	Test mechanisms before building them
SimWise FEA	Stress and thermal analysis	Identify weaknesses and optimise designs
SimWise 4D	Motion + dynamic stress analysis	Understand how products perform during real operation
SimLab Composer	Rendering and visualisation, 3D PDF and VR	Create professional sales and presentation materials, Communicate complex designs more clearly, and Experience and review products before they are built

Getting More Value From Your Alibre Investment

One of the biggest advantages of choosing an extensible CAD platform is that you don't necessarily have to replace your core design software every time your requirements grow. Instead, you can add capabilities around the CAD system as your business needs them.

A small engineering company might start with Alibre for 3D design and later add PDM when multiple designers need to manage shared data. As products become more complex, simulation can be introduced to reduce physical prototyping. As the business begins selling more sophisticated products, visualisation and VR can help communicate those designs to customers.

The result is a workflow that can grow with the business. Alibre provides the foundation. The right add-ons can turn that foundation into a much broader product development environment.

From managing your design data, to testing how a mechanism moves, understanding whether a component will withstand its operating conditions, or showing a customer exactly what their finished product could look like, the same underlying CAD data can continue delivering value throughout the product lifecycle. Ultimately, that's the real opportunity: getting more out of the Alibre license you already have, rather than treating CAD as simply the place where a 3D model is created.