Many college and high school students these days are lucky enough to have access to SOLIDWORKS in their classrooms and computer labs. This is a really great way to learn not only 3D CAD, but engineering and design principles in general. But did you know that if you are a student at a school that has a network of SOLIDWORKS licenses, there is a good chance that you have access to an installation of SOLIDWORKS on your own personal computer? For free? Sounds too good to be true, right? Wrong!
What is Student Access Licensing?
Unlock your creative potential with access to 3D design software from Autodesk. Software downloads are available to students, educators, educational institutions.
Student Access Licensing comes in two flavors. There is the Student Design Kit (SDK), which is available to students at schools that have at least 45 networked seats of SOLIDWORKS. There is also the Student Engineering Kit (SEK), which is available to schools with 100 or more networked seats. The Student Design Kit offers an installation of SOLIDWORKS Standard, while the Student Engineering Kit comes with an installation of SOLIDWORKS Premium, including Simulation Premium and Flow Simulation as well as SOLIDWORKS Sustainability. Both the SDK and SEK come as standalone license installations, meaning that SOLIDWORKS can be run without the computer needing to be connected to the licensing network.
How do I get access?
First you must find out if your school qualifies. To do this, contact your school’s CAD Administrator. This is the person in charge of all things SOLIDWORKS. They will know how many licensed seats your school owns and whether or not you qualify for the SDK or SEK programs. If you do qualify, they will be able to provide you with a student access code, the SDK-ID or the SEK-ID. Then gohere to fill out the Student Access Form and receive your serial number and download access.
If you find out your school does not qualify for student access licensing, you still have options! Talk to your CAD Administrator about the possibility of temporarily borrowing a license from your network. This requires you to have access to your school’s network on your personal computer during the installation process. Once SOLIDWORKS is installed using a network serial number, the computer must stay connected to the network while SOLIDWORKS is in use, however a license can be “borrowed” for up to 30 days.
Is there anything else I should know?
Get free 60-day SOLIDWORKS trial software for your class and curriculum development. With over 31,000 education and research customers worldwide, SOLIDWORKS helps graduating engineers and designers succeed in their careers through innovation. Your trial will be fully functional, watermarked and for educational use only. Aug 31, 2018 In your downloads, you should see your SOLIDWORKS 2018 program listed. Click the “Download” link next to it to open the download site. On the download site, scroll down until you see a section titled “ To download your Student Edition, please follow the instructions below:” Read the second step of this section. SOLIDWORKS Education Edition More than a CAD teaching tool, SOLIDWORKS Education Edition is a complete engineering suite. Featuring SOLIDWORKS software, curriculum, certification & more, this is your all-inclusive resource for teaching 3D mechanical CAD, design validation, data management and sustainability. Oct 13, 2014. Thank you for your interest in SOLIDWORKS Premium. If you'd like more time to test drive SOLIDWORKS, please contact your reseller to request a full, 7-day SOLIDWORKS Online or Desktop evaluation. If you are not currently working with a reseller, one will be assigned to you.
Yes. The student access licenses are temporary. They will expire either one year after activation or on November 30th of the following academic school year, depending on which comes first. For example, if you receive access to an SDK license for the 2014-2015 school year and you activate on August 1, 2014, your activation will expire on August 1, 2015. If you do not activate until December 15, 2014, your activation will expire on November 30, 2015. If you are still a student enrolled at the school and you’d like to upgrade to the next version for the next academic year, you will need to get another access code from your CAD Administrator.
What if I have questions about the software?
Many commercial costumers of SOLIDWORKS choose to purchase a yearly subscription service, which allows the customer access to unlimited technical support, among other things. The same subscription services are not available to student access licenses; however there are many great resources available on the SOLIDWORKS Students website. You can also email studentsupport@solidworks.com with questions. If you have technical problems with the installation, contact your schools CAD Administrator for help.
How can I make sure SOLIDWORKS runs well?
If you are considering purchasing a laptop with CAD in mind, you’ll want to take a look at the SOLIDWORKS system requirements. If you are considering beefing up your system to really get optimal performance, I suggest investing in a professional grade graphics card. The SOLIDWORKS graphics card requirements can be found here. Also, you when you go to perform the installation, I recommend following CAPINC’s recommended installation procedure for best results.
We all know life as a college student can be hard. Hours are long, money is tight and as an engineer-in-training, the stress is high. The last thing you want to worry about is whether or not there will be enough open computers in the lab, or getting your assignment done before the engineering building closes. Talk to your school’s CAD Administrator today to get your own personal installation of SOLIDWORKS for free!
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Screenshots
Description
eDrawings Viewer is the only CAD viewer for Mac which delivers a premier 3D viewing experience for non CAD professionals. eDrawings Viewer enables anyone to quickly and easily view, print and review native eDrawings and SOLIDWORKS files in addition to AutoCAD DWG and DXF files. eDrawings is an email-enabled communication tool that dramatically eases the sharing of product design information. You can load and send files via email to collaborate more effectively with everyone involved in product development, including people who are not regular CAD software users to interpret and understand 2D and 3D designs.
eDrawings enables 2D & 3D product evaluation and collaboration through the MarkUp, Measure and Section tools. With dynamic sectioning collaborators can see any internal or external view of the design they require and mark-up enables them to give precise and contextual feedback.
Features:
* Intuitive and easy-to-use user interface
* Open 3D (EASM, EPRT, SLDASM, SLDPRT, IGES, IGS, JT, STEP, STP, IFC), 2D (EDRW, SLDDRW, DWG, DXF) and associated files from: email attachments, cloud storage services (Dropbox™, SkyDrive®, Google Drive, YouSendIt®, and others), web and FTP sites, network drives
* Zoom, pan and rotate your 2D or 3D CAD data
* Interrogate designs and collaborate with precision using Measure, MarkUp and Section functionality
* Animate 3D standard views as well as 2D drawing views.
* Browse your assembly components tree, configurations and drawing sheets
* View your designs in full screen and double tap to fit it on screen
For more information, visit:
http://www.edrawingsviewer.com
What’s New
Bug fixes
Support for SolidWorks 2021 file formats
3Dconnexion device support
Large assemblies load at last!
eDrawings on Mac has always crashed loading large assemblies (anything >10Mb), this release is the first I have used that is useful in this regard. Hallelujah!
A loading dialogue would be a further improvement rather than just the spinning beachball, but not crashing is a good improvement to start with.
Developer Response,
Hi User,
Thank you for getting in touch regarding the app. If you have time,
Can you provide some further information, for example, some screenshot or video demonstrating the issue at your end by creating a Service request on below link:
http://www.edrawingsviewer.com/ed/edrawings-support.htm
Thanks,
eDrawings Support Team.
Handy viewing/measuring/annotation
I’ve been using edrawings for many years on the mac to view, measure and annotate .dwg drawings from others and to review my own .dwg outputs from SketchUp etc. Great to have it on appstore now, usability of the interface is good, it is more intuitive than earlier versions but some things still a little obscure so 4 star not 5. Free so superb value!
Developer Response,
Hi Tomhhd,
Thank you for your feedback. We are Glad that you liked our app.
If you need assistance with eDrawings app feel free to contact eDrawings Support on below link: http://www.edrawingsviewer.com/ed/edrawings-support.htmStay
Stay tuned for our next release.
Works for me
I was a bit put off by the other reviews, but as it's free I thought I'd give it a try. For me it works - I just want to be able to view DWG files and layers, and that it does just fine!
Information
macOS 10.12 or later, 64-bit processor
Solidworks Download Mac
Download Solidworks School Edition Mac Free
Supports
Solidworks School Download
Family Sharing
Up to six family members will be able to use this app with Family Sharing enabled.