Develop and communicate 3D product designs from concept to final surfaces.
Concept design
Sketching and illustration tools
Capture and communicate concept design ideas freehand without switching applications. Alias includes a comprehensive set of sketching, illustration, and image editing tools—pencils, paintbrushes, airbrushes, markers, erasers, and special texture and effects brushes. The integrated 2D/3D environment enables product designers to create sketches at real-world scale and draw over imported 3D CAD data to evaluate design feasibility.
Flexible product modeling
Experiment with ideas in shape and form. Pursue innovative solutions to your design challenges. Quickly explore and visualize any form using a range of 3D modeling techniques. Alias software combines fast, repeatable, curve-based modeling tools with the ability to directly edit and sculpt 3D models. Choose the best modeling technique for the task at hand. Generate multiple design iterations quickly, and make subtle corrections or radical changes with flexible tools.
Dynamic shape modeling
Quickly manipulate your product model and explore shape variations on 3D forms without rebuilding geometry. Make real-time modifications and shape objects dynamically in design reviews. Manipulate a customizable lattice rig created around an object to sculpt geometry, or bend it using a curve to control deformation. You can also twist geometry around a single-axis curve, or conform it to the shape of another surface.
3D sculpting
Refine your 3D models through an intuitive, iterative process. Sculpt surfaces by directly adjusting surface control vertices. Use curve-based tools to define a shape at its edges, and use direct modeling to adjust the shape at any point. Maintain complete control, achieving the exact form and surface quality you need.
Product modeling
Stitches and seams
Automate the creation of stitches and seams for surfaces that will be stitched together.
Surface chain select tool
Select an entire chain of surfaces with just one pick.
Automatic arrays of shapes
Simplify uniform and nonuniform objects by using arrays. Use multiple methods to create arrays of lines and surfaces in both 2D and 3D.
Mathematically precise surface creation
Alias includes multiple tools that help modelers and designers create mathematical shapes. For example, control pitch in the Revolve tool, which creates objects like springs and threads.
Surface Modeling & Class-A Surfacing
Multiblend tool
Fill an enclosed area with 3 or more surface inputs to make smooth transitions between surfaces.
Surface Analysis
Light ray effects and reflections
Create linear reflections on a model in a cylindrical tunnel of light. Study your surfaces in a virtual lighting studio. The Light Tunnel is a visual surface evaluation tool that provides a controlled lighting and reflection model to help you understand your designs better.
Shading in clay
Shade your model with a low-specularity clay color to study the subtleties of surface shape and shadow. Temporarily change all of your shaders to a clay material with the Clay with Ambient Occlusion feature. When you're finished, your model goes back to its original form.
Isophotes for surface flow
Use isophotes—thin, sharp lines that show the path of surface flow—to find possible errors in your design. They can show the movement of sand over a desert or represent the underlying shape of snow in a mountain range. In Alias, this surface evaluation tool highlights spots of the same brightness in your design, alerting you to possible imperfections in your model.
Design Communication & Product Visualization
Interoperability with other tools
Alias interoperability tools streamline operations with other products used in the design process, including cutters, scanners, printers, meshers, and engineering applications.
Ability to switch shading assignments
When designers need to look at different color combinations, shader switches provide an easy way to make color combinations and easily switch between them. These switches move easily to VRED 3D visualization software for high-quality visualization and renderings.
Variant configuration sets
Capture the state of your current view, so you can get back to it whenever you want to. Share your configurations to VRED for visualization.
Interactive product visualization
Evaluate design options with real-time, interactive product visualization. Tell the story of your product design in context using geometric environments.
Compelling photorealistic renderings
Image-based lighting supports high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) for interactive product visualization and rendering. The result is high-resolution imagery for evaluating, presenting, and marketing your product designs.
Convenient data exchange
Share your design data with downstream mechanical design and engineering software, using the DWG™ format.
