# An alternative to Sketchup.



## Johnboy (12 Apr 2006)

Sketchup seems to be getting popular around here especially with Dave's excellent tips and tutorials. Before splashing out the quite large sum for Sketchup I would suggest trying Alibre Xpress which is available for free. Below is a small demo showing the modelling and modification of a simple flat panel door or drawer front similar to one shown by Dave recently.

First a rectangle is drawn on any workplane and dimensioned.






This is then extruded to the thickness you want (18mm here) resulting in a solid.





A rectangle is then drawn on the front face and the width of the rails and stiles dimensioned.





An "extrude cut" is made with this rectangle to make a panel recessed 6mm into the face completing the model.





The beauty of CAD is when you decide to change the dimensions or want to make several doors in different sizes. For example if I want to change the size to 1200 x 400 I just select the original sketch and edit it.





Update the model and you get this.





Perhaps that bottom rail could be a bit thicker so just edit the second sketch to make it 125mm instead of 50mm.





Update the model and job done.





Open a drawing select this part and choose what views you want, add a few dimensions (which are linked to the model so automatically change with changes to the model).





I haven't used Sketchup so don't how easy this would be using it but for free I think Alibre is worth trying.

No connections etc.

Hope this was of interest.

John


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## martyn2 (12 Apr 2006)

look intressing any links to the down load site ?

Martyn


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## Johnboy (12 Apr 2006)

Doh! knew I missed something.

http://www.alibre.com/xpress/

John


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## martyn2 (12 Apr 2006)

many thanks

Martyn


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## SketchUp Guru (12 Apr 2006)

Interesting. And for free, too!

Does it do perspective views or only isometric ones?

FWIW, editing a door in SU is as simple and you don't need to draw the dimensions until you're ready for them.

Thanks for the compliments, too.


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## Johnboy (13 Apr 2006)

Dave, Perspective, I dont know but will have a play and find out. The views shown were just the model rotated on the screen and dumped into a jpeg.

There is no need to dimension anything in Alibre until you want to either, I just find it easier to add them early.

John


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## Johnboy (13 Apr 2006)

Just had a look and it is in the view menu, you can switch between perspective and orthographic.

John


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## Chris Knight (13 Apr 2006)

Alibre is a very powerful system - a real parametric solids modeller. A year or so ago, there was a big launch of the freebie version and a few folk here tried it, myself included. The free version is inevitably less capable than the full blown thing but very capable nonetheless. It's interface is rather similar to Solidworks which is thousands of dollars per annum/seat and obviously does a lot more, however Alibre would do all most woodworkers could dream of. However, as has been said before of other CAD programs and Sketchup, they are two different animals.


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## Bean (13 Apr 2006)

The manufacturers of Solidworks and Pro Engineer have supplied cutdown versions as free handouts to Tech Schools, if you know someone at one of these schools you could get one or a copy...........not that I said that


Bean


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