Alias Essential Training

Learn to use the industry-leading modeling and refinement tool Alias Design, for surfacing, engineering, and creating high-quality, feasible CAD models.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What you should know before watching this course
• Using the exercise files
• Installing Alias Design

1. Interface

• Checking out the Alias interface
• Working within a project
• View and entity manipulation
• Snapping entities with the Pivot option
• The ViewCube and the Navigation bar
• Marking-menu custom shelves
• Hotkeys and the Menu Editor
• Let's get started
• Looking at layer basics
• Layer symmetry
• Layer management

2. Curve Creation

• Curve primitives: Circles and sweeps
• New curves: CV, Edit Point, and Sketch curves
• Blend curves
• Keypoint curves
• Snapping entities
• Moving control points
• The Hotbox interface (spacebar)
• Creating text

3. Basic Surfaces

• Surface primitives
• Planar surfaces
• Surface sweep extrude
• Multi-Surface Draft
• Bevel and Skin
• Surface Revolve
• Mono-rail sweep surfaces
• Bi-rail sweep surfaces
• Additional notes on sweeps
• Tube Flange: Center Radius
• Tube Flange: Tangent Offset
• Tubular Offset
• Fillet Flange
• Simple fillet
• Freeform Blend
• Profile Blend
• Ball corners (round)

4. Construction Aids

• Using the History view
• The Object Lister
• The Information window
• Reference vectors
• Construction planes

5. Modifying Geometry

• Symmetrical modeling
• Extending curves and surfaces
• Flatten (planarize) a basic curve
• Flatten hulls onto planes

6. Move, Scale, Flip, or Rotate

• Moving geometry
• Scale and Non-Proportional Scale
• Rotating geometry
• Reflecting or flipping objects
• 3D placement
• 3D placement with multiple copies

7. Edit Objects

• Increasing the complexity of curves
• Increasing the complexity of surfaces
• Trimming curves
• Trimming surfaces
• Reverse the direction of a curve or surface
• Making an object closed

8. Cut, Trim, and Offset

• Offset entities
• Intersecting planes and surfaces
• Create curves on a surface

9. Create Copies of Objects

• Duplicating objects
• Rebuilding curves
• Rebuilding surfaces
• Copy and paste options
• Exporting data
• Exporting to rapid prototype

10. Align, Combine, and Split Objects

• Aligning curves
• Aligning surfaces
• Joining two curves
• Split or detach entities
• Stretch a curve

11. Evaluate Geometry

• Analyze curve problems
• Annotations and measurements
• Creating cross-sections
• Evaluating curve continuity
• Evaluating surface continuity
• Measuring deviation between two objects

12. Shading a Model

• Multicolor shading
• The random-color diagnostic shader
• Horizontal and vertical shaders
• Visual state analysis
• Die-line evaluation

Conclusion

• Next steps
• Goodbye