SW student edition

A cautionary Warning from the San Jose user group meeting last week relating to "student-version" parts on 3d content central:

I had lunch with a guy who downloaded parts from 3D content central. He was working on a project, things were going great, then he went to make his drawing of the assembly and he got the watermark.

He had to manually suppress or delete (I don't remember) components, then toggle back to the drawing, until the watermark went away to figure out which of the parts was the culprit. I do not know if SolidWorks has introduced a 'Student' filter since he downloaded those parts (bet you anything they haven't), but I do know that this is a big issue that is worth keeping an eye out for.

(personal note: I don't trust any online model until I have it in my hand and can confirm dims with my calipers. If I know I am going to buy it, I buy it, get it in, and check. But it still wouldn't have occured to me to make a test drawing to insure against an "educational version" watermark)

Just sharing, Ed

I believe there are also limitations when it comes to "save as".

// Krister

"Charles Manoras" wrote

OK, I explain.

I am assisting a couple of teachers at my daughter's HS for the students projects.

This involves several things:

1. making drawings of relatively simple mechanical parts so that they can be executed in some outside machine shop (not at the HS which has none).

1. showing how the assembled models will look like (various views, preferably nicely rendered for obvious PR reasons w/r to the school management, the students and the parents), may be if I could some animation that would be very, very nice.

1 and 2 for one teacher.

1. making simple but attractive CAD models of telescopes for another teacher, with the same considerations as above.

I have no objection to a small blurb on the drawings or pictures explaining how the software was obtained or stating that this was done with educational software.

But if it is some big distracting ugly conspicuous banner that would ruin the intended effect.

What's a "watermark" in this case conspicuous or discreet?

I have also some plans for the future to assist a math teacher for drawing / designing polyhedras and to animate them.

I have done this before and shown that relatively elaborate 3D math objects could be "built" w/o any knowledge of spherical trigonometry at all.

As usual the vendors I have spoken to addressing these questions are utterly clueless, one even claimed they were not offering SW for educational purposes, I had to send them the link.

Charles,

These links may be of help to you.

In the education version of the software you typically can't save as/ export to neutral cad formats. You will get a watermark on your printed documents. Not sure how big the watermark is. Big enough though to deter professionals from using educational versions of the software.

I suspect that for what you wish to do you will be fine.

SolidWorks is very involved in the educational community. That was a major emphasis ot SWW 2007 with time devoted at one of the General Sessions on what SolidWorks is doing in the educational community. Sorry to hear there are VAR's that are not informed about what SolidWorks is doing with educators.

Cheers,

Anna Wood

Jon,

Most SolidWorks commercial VAR's are not authorized to sell the education editions. SolidWorks has as specific group of education only resellers that provide software, training and ancillary products to educational institutions.

Education only resellers are focused on serving the needs of the education market. These companies typically offer additional products to support technology curriculums that commercial resellers simply do not provide.

SolidWorks maintains a list of education only resellers on their website which should be able to provide the information that Charles is looking for.

Best regards,

John

Jon,

Who said SolidWorks doesn't educate their VARs?

I think the blame lies with the specific VAR management or employees, not SolidWorks Corp. There is a lot of information regarding the education version available to all SolidWorks VAR's, but only selected VAR's can sell the education versions.

Charles asked for details regarding watermarks and "limitations" in the education versions. If a VAR doesn't sell the education version, would you expect them to know about it's limitations and especially the physical characteristics of a "watermark"?

Also, why is it Marie Planchard's job to educate people about SolidMentor?

J "As usual the vendors I have spoken to addressing these questions are utterly clueless, one even claimed they were not offering SW for educational purposes, I had to send them the link."

As far as controlling the quality of the VAR's, I hope Charles spoke to SolidWorks about his experience. How would you suggest controlling the quality?

Regarding Marie Planchard and SolidMentor, how do you know she doesn't recommend it?

Jon,

From what I can find, the only blog that is promoted on the SolidWorks educational web pages is their own

Given that it is focused specifically on topics relevant to teachers, it provides a concise set of tools to aid teachers that provide technology instruction.

While I appreciate your desire to promote SolidMentor, I personally don't feel it is the responsibility of SolidWorks Corp. to join your effort.

Educators that are interested in SolidWorks can easily find authorized education resellers from the SolidWorks web site. It takes four clicks from the SolidWorks home page to get a list of education resellers for a particular state. They are the best source of information.

Please keep up your promotion of SolidMentor. It is a great resource.

Regards,

John