Overview

itopia Labs delivers learning experiences from SolidWorks, an industry-standard solid modelling computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering (CAD / CAE) utility. Labs provides the latest generally-available major version of SolidWorks, with incremental updates being applied as they are released.

What is SolidWorks?

While SolidWorks is feature-rich and enables the creation of almost any shape imaginable -- with a focus on engineering design. For more organic design requirements, a sculpting program like Blender (offered in Labs) is a better fit.

Application Licensing

itopia Labs does not provide licensing for SolidWorks. Labs administrators must provide their own licensing information when configuring SolidWorks for a Class.

If your school district doesn't already have SolidWorks educational licenses, be sure to check-out their student pricing on this webpage.

NOTE: In order to use SolidWorks in itopia Labs, Labs must be able to communicate with your SolidWorks License Server. Refer to the information below or contact your itopia representative or the itopia Helpdesk for additional information on this requirement.

Connecting to Your Licensing Server

Each VM instance created through Labs is ephemeral and isolated from communicating with other devices over the network. For SolidWorks applications to communicate with your license server from Labs, we must satisfy a few requirements.

Labs does not support private connectivity to on-premises networks (such as via VPN); therefore, your SolidWorks license server must be accessible from the Internet with a static public IP or a dynamic DNS record that automatically points to the current IP address of your SolidWorks server.

Your perimeter firewall device must be configured to allow traffic from the following IP addresses and TCP ports; these are the IP addresses that Labs sessions use for Internet connectivity.

When you create a new Class in the Labs Admin Dashboard (labs-admin.itopia.com) and select a SolidWorks image, you will be prompted to enter your license server's public address in the format:

[Port]@[IP address or DNS name]

Where Port is typically 25734 (unless you have configured an alternative port on your license server or are using port forwarding on your firewall) and IP address or DNS name is the public address of your license server.