Case in point is our current job where we have a full Kitchen, Master Bath and 3 alcove units in the Great Room, all to be taken from Architect elevations and floor plans to working drawings in only 3 weeks (including client review and comment). Photo Realistic renderings may be pretty, but there is little time for them during the short time we are often given to take a design from concept to working drawing for manufacture. It allows us to refine the design, and incorporate those lessons learned that often were not realized until a project was actually built and completed.Īlibre's 3D PDF capability, stuns most customers with the interactive nature of the model while reviewing a design. We think of our Alibre work as Virtual Woodworking, where we work through the manufacture as we would with a mock up. While not a comparison of Alibre and Sketch Up, I hope it gives you enough information to make a comparison based on your experience with Sketch Up. Eventually we should even have dialog window driven woodworking models, that are quite straight forward to use. With API programs being developed, we can now synchronize parameters between Part and Assembly files. The most exciting development is our emerging capability to link parameters between files. In fact, the straight forward interface and Equation Editor has proven to make Alibre far more suited to woodworking than some of the more expensive packages. Our Engineer background and experience has allowed us to take this Mechanical Design package and effectively adapt it to use for the woodworking market. Another script take the same Alibre BOM, and outputs that information in KCDw CNCList.txt format for automated input into MasterCAM ATP, which does automated nesting and code generation. Scripts in the Binaries section help take a Bill of Material and format it for either program. We use Sheet Layout and Cutlist Plus to do manual nesting, and provide diagrams and cutlists to clients. These DXF files are sent directly to manufacturing for equipment able to do the nesting such as Thermwood equipment, and we also do material nesting and CNC output for ShopBots using MasterCAM software. We are also expanding our models to support CNC manufacturing and currently output 2D DXF files from drawings created from the models. Also, take a look at the Binaries section of this forum and some of the AutoHotKey scripts we have developed to make our modeling even more efficient and automated. The material posted for download on our website, and those tutorials on woodworking at in the CAD group are only the tip of the iceberg. We often start from our library of models, and add more to our library when a specific construction seems worthwhile to make it generic and would form a good baseline model. We currently have standard models for cabinets, frame and panel, a couple different drawer construction styles, moldings, and Frame and Panel doors with optional moldings. It really makes creating and resizing parts a breeze. We have not found that essential capability with other packages we evaluated. Alibre has allowed us to create parametrically driven models (with equations) that can be easily resized based on changing a few key Specifying parameters (values such as Cabinet_Width). While we do not have experience with Sketch Up, we have had a little with Rhino. Alibre has allowed us to do designs quite efficiently for quite a broad range of design styles and construction. While originally purchased to do our own designs, we are now doing designs for other shops full time as hired drafters. We originally purchased Alibre because we were fed up with the limitations of standard cabinet software and the lack of any software that would allow us to design furniture (at least for a reasonable price). We are using Alibre Design to create designs for professional woodworkers.
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