Empowers Members To Digitally Design And Create ... For Free

By Anthony Liberatore

EAA President Jack Pelton announced Monday during AirVenture that EAA members can now have free access to SolidWorks 3D Design Software (by Dassault Systems) Student Design Kit, the EAA Maker Edition (ME) and Pelton noted how excited he was about this benefit. “I think it is another step for EAA providing a great number of benefits but also encouraging innovation all they way by providing a tool to make it happen," Pelton said. With the creativity of EAA members many are familiar with 3D Modeling tools but may not have access to these tools on a personal level. With the EAA Maker Edition will allow members to access this high end CAD design tool for free.  The output of these design files that can be utilized by 3D Printers and other digital manufacturing technologies.

Also at the announcement were Marie Planchard, Director of Education Community SolidWorks, Suchit JAIN, Vice President Strategy & Business Development Dassault Systemes, and from Graphics Systems Corp (GSC, a SolidWorks systems provider) President Dace Kasinskas. and his entire team. These Professionals were available to discuss the rights within the EAA Maker Edition as well as technical aspects of this offering. In regards the the rights the EAA ME, it is watermarked for member use only. Should and EAAer decide to go forward with a potential product from their design efforts, GSC will work with them during their incubator phase offering the software at no cost. However when the product goes in production, GSC will get the entrepreneur aboard with a purchased copy and all rights their-in. This will allow a start up that maybe tight on funds to get through their early gestation phase without burning through precious working capital.

On the technical aspects of the SolidWorks files, one item of discussion was exporting the files to various end user and manufacturing platforms via the traditional IGES and STL formats. However, it was noted  these legacy exports remove the Parametrics (the ability to change a feature easily) as well as the Parasolid Kernel is lost (the Solid Modeling engine within the software). However,  Planchard noted in today's Engineering/Manufacturing world: “especially in Wisconsin's area, I know you members are worldwide, but there really  isn't a machine shop out there that isn't using “Solid Direct” and you want to think about that before talk about these import / export editions that have been around for 30 years and to use the latest technology we have and that is important to us," he said. While SolidWorks is a Model-Based system, drawings can be developed off the model for those that utilize blueprints . The Model can also be utilized for basic one pass simulation since Solidworks SimulationXpress will be included in the ME.

(Staff image)

FMI: www.eaa.org/SOLIDWORKS.com, www.gogxsc.com/eaa