Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquarte ...

Alias (formerly known as Alias StudioTools) is a family of

computer-aided industrial design Computer Aided Industrial Design (CAID) is a subset of computer-aided design (CAD) software that can assist in creating the look-and-feel or industrial design aspects of a product in development. CAID programs tend to provide designers with impr ...

(CAID) software predominantly used in

automotive design Automotive design is the process of developing the appearance (and to some extent the ergonomics) of motor vehicles, including automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, buses, coaches, and vans. The functional design and development of a modern mot ...

and

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in adva ...

for generating

class A surfaces In automotive design, a class A surface is a freeform surface of high efficiency and quality, in terms of aesthetical reflectivity. Strictly, class A surfaces have curvature and tangency alignment. However, many people interpret class A surface ...

using

Bézier surface Bézier surfaces are a type of mathematical spline used in computer graphics, computer-aided design, and finite element modeling. As with Bézier curves, a Bézier surface is defined by a set of control points. Similar to interpolation in many ...

and

non-uniform rational B-spline Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using B-spline, basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and Surface (mathematics), surfaces. It offers great flexibility and pr ...

(NURBS) modeling method. The product is sold specifically as CAID rather than CAD, and its tools and abilities are oriented more towards the "styling" aspect of design - that is to say, the product's housing and outer appearance. It does not go into mechanical detail like other CAD programs such as

Siemens NX NX, formerly known as "Unigraphics", is CAD/CAM/ CAE software, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both software packages ...

Inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

CATIA CATIA (, an acronym of computer-aided three-dimensional interactive application) is a multi-platform software suite for computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), 3D modeling and product li ...

, Creo and

SolidWorks SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC. The brand is owned ...

History

Alias Research

Alias software was developed by four computer scientists: Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna and David Springer to create an easy-to-use software package to produce realistic 3D models. In 1983, Alias Research was founded at

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Ontario, Canada. Alias unveiled its first product Alias/1 in 1985 at SIGGRAPH '85 in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Initial versions ran only on Silicon Graphics computers and the Irix operating system, until late in the 1990s when the software was ported to Microsoft Windows. In 2011 Mac versions were launched, which were discontinued in 2019. The company was a leader in high-end 3D graphics software.

Under Silicon Graphics

In 1995,

Alias Research Alias may refer to: * Pseudonym, a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose ** Pen name, a pseudonym adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name ** Stage ...

was purchased by

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

and merged

Wavefront Technologies Wavefront Technologies was a computer graphics company that developed and sold computer animation, animation software used in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film, motion pictures and other industries. It was founded in 1984, in Santa Barba ...

, another 3D software graphics company founded in 1984 at

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...

, to form Alias/Wavefront which was later renamed as Alias Systems Corporation.

Under Autodesk

On October 4, 2005 Alias was acquired by

, StudioTools changed its name to Autodesk AliasStudio. It became part of Autodesk in 2006.

Products

The product suite starts with Alias Design as the entry-level conceptual design system, progressing to Alias Surface, and then to Alias Automotive as the top-of-the-line product with all of the options. Tools for sketching, modeling and visualization are combined in one software package. It meets the specialized needs of designers: sketching, freedom to experiment with shape and form, creating organic shapes, visualization for design review, and data exchange with

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

packages. As of version 2021, Autodesk Alias was split into separate standalone products: * Autodesk Alias AutoStudio (formerly Autodesk Alias Automotive) * Autodesk Alias Surface (formerly Autodesk Surface Studio) * Autodesk Alias Concept ( formerly Autodesk Design Studio)

Usage and application

Autodesk Alias is often used for design and styling in the automotive, marine, aircraft, sporting equipment, packaging electronic enclosure, children's toy, and fashion accessory markets. Alias .wire data reads directly into

Autodesk Inventor Autodesk Inventor is a computer-aided design extension application for 3D mechanical design, simulation, visualization, and documentation developed by Autodesk. Features Inventor allows analyzing 2D and 3D CAD models by creating a virtual rep ...

, Autodesk Showcase, Autodesk ImageStudio,

Autodesk Maya Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya (; ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for inter ...

and Autodesk VRED and It exports into several other 3D engineering packages via IGES or STEP such as

, Creo and

for further downstream detailing and operations. The program has two types of modelers within it:

NURBS Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and surfaces. It offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analy ...

and

Subdivision Subdivision may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Subdivision (metre), in music * ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009 * "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2) * ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005 * "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...

References

* 1. ^
Autodesk® Alias® 2019 Product Line
* 2.
Learning Design with Alias StudioTools
- A Hands-on Guide to Modeling and Visualization in 3D (Official Alias Training Guide).

External links

Autodesk Alias Products

AliasDesign Community Website
{{CAD software Computer-aided design software Computer-aided industrial design IRIX software