It Might Be a good MoI companion...Any alibre users here? how good the .3DM importer is ? any info will be much appreciated :)

the 3DM importer is fairly good. I haven't had any trouble to bring Rhino models and then shell, fillet, etc... No 3DM export though. You'll have to use IGES, STEP, etc to return to MoI if you need...

jonah

jonah thanks for your reply, I mainly considering alibre for the Drafting tools set + dwg support...have you tried the Drafting tools with Rhino models ?

haven't used it for that, yet...

Hi I spoke with the local reseller and the offer will be available until Aug. 31. As well as I tried the software , rhino import as well and that was working but I have some big 3DM file (120MB) what were thrown by Alibre Design I have got memory probleme too. So I could not use the software I tried with simple shapes like Sphere and so on and thats work. But the conclusion the Alibre interface is horrible after Moi or Rhino or etc. maybe enough for mechaical design but not for product designer. Very easy to use make holes and any exact modfication but finally I didnt buy despite documentation and print part is very inteligent and promising and there are some engeneering tools what is suitable to define volumes(m3), weight(kg), area (m2).

I bought the Pro version on July 31st because the deal was too good to pass up:

$750 for Pro version (normally $1500)
first year maintenance free (normally $350)
training DVD (worth $300)
12-months financing at 0% interest
bundled with Hypershot Web and advanced 3D PDF exporter

But i had only 3 or 4 hours to try it before I bought. Alibre has a 30-day return policy. So i have decided already to return it because, like you mentioned it is sufficient tool for part engineering but not so much for product design. It can not really produce any blended surface shapes other than lofting. Can not do any fillet except for rolling ball. And the Rhino plugin isn't much more than using standard Rhino block objects. That's why i am returning. Although i realize it's the best deal i saw from Alibre in several years... But then i thought, i will return and just buy the $99 deal. But they said anybody who purchased in July can not purchase the current $99 offer! So now i plan to return it and wipe my hands clean... :)

Also the $99 offer is not refundable. You buy it, you keep it!!!

jonah

Yes.

After my purchase of Caligari Truespace 7.5 I am always thinking away everything well when I start to buy software.

:) Important things:

free download to try
Easy to use interface ?
Buggy ? --> search the forum well!
What can I do with it ? (my requirements)
Price?

and the most important!
be TRANSFERABLE (or refundable until 30 day)

If you need "Parametric Modeling" then this would be a great price to be introduced to it. It also has the abilty to start working with assemblies. Feature based modeling workflow.

But, if you dont use this, I dont, then it would seem less intuitive and have alot that needed learning with no return. I was tempted just because 100 bucks for it is such a great deal, but for me it would just be 100 sitting on my computer. I thought just buy it and have it to fool around with if I needed to explore this area, but they have demo versions for exploration and truly, if I wanted to move to this software, this version would be insufficient and I would need the pro version at least (jbshortey). Once I get into the thousands for software, there are other packages I would go for)

Anyway, just mumbling.

My mumblings exactly. ;-)