Compare Overview

Use Project Center's compare feature to find changes that have been made between baselineWhen comparing, the baseline file is the file being used as the basis for comparison; the file to which a revised file is being compared. and revisedWhen comparing, the revised file is a modified file being compared to an original, or baseline file. versions of drawings, project folders and files, document sets, or record copies. Compare is available from activity centers throughout Project Center as well as the Newforma Viewer.

Compare visually identifies differences between project folders, files, document sets, or record copies, eliminating the time-consuming process of manually comparing them. By color-coding additions, deletions, and changes, the compare feature enables project team members to focus their attention on important coordination issues and evaluate the quantity, cost, and scheduling impacts of design revisions.

The Batch Print of Compare Results dialog box eliminates the time and cost of comparing large drawing sets, enabling the project team to quickly set up batch compare  processes that output results to .PDF files or a plotter.

You can also use the Newforma Viewer to compare files. It enables you to electronically compare two or more versions of a drawing. The compare animator allows project team members to dynamically transition between adjacent drawing versions for a clear understanding of how the design has evolved over the project timeline. It also provides the ability to animate changes and filter out dimensionally insignificant changes. Multi-version animation sequences can also be output as animated .GIF files through Project Center's Digital Light Table.

Compare project files, folders, document sets, or record copies

Use the Compare Results window to compare any of the following:

• Project files to other project files.

• Project folders to other project folders, document sets, or record copies.

• Document sets to other document sets, project folders, or record copies.

• Record copies to other record copies, document sets, or project folders.

• Two Word (.DOC) documents. When you use the Compare feature, the documents are opened and compared in Microsoft Word, and the results are displayed just like any other comparison made directly in Word.

Milestone drawing quality control

You can use Project Center's compare feature to track down and eliminate unintended or undocumented revisions that could otherwise lead to cost and time escalation associated with RFIs, re-submittals, and other actions to correct the mistakes. However, the time and effort required to compare dozens or even hundreds of drawings in a revised milestone might cause the team to abandon or short-cut this quality control measure.

This is where the Batch Print of Compare Results dialog box is beneficial. It allows you to set up an unattended batch compare processes to generate and output color-coded comparisons to a printer or to a .PDF file. Once the unattended process has completed, project team members can quickly scan the color-coded revisions to look for unintended or undocumented revisions.

Multi-version compare

Multi-version compare graphically displays the differences between three or more versions of a drawing. The compare animator allows project team members to dynamically transition between adjacent drawing versions for a clearer understanding of how the design has evolved over the project timeline. You can also output multi-version animation sequences as animated .GIF files from the Digital Light Table.

For information on how Compare handles external references, see How the Compare Feature Handles External References (XREFs).

Compare drawings

Use the Newforma Viewer to visually identify differences between successive drawings or sets of drawings. It eliminates the time-consuming process of manually comparing drawings. By color-coding additions, deletions, and changes, and providing the ability to animate changes, the Newforma Viewer enables the members of the project team to focus their attention on important coordination issues and evaluate the quantity, cost, and scheduling impacts of design revisions.

You can compare any file format supported by the Newforma Viewer. When comparing CAD files such as .DWG, .DGN, and .DWF, the compare feature uses each drawing entity’s unique object ID to allow drawing entities that have not changed to be de-emphasized by coloring them light gray. If an object in a drawing changes, even if it is moved by the tiniest amount (1mm for example), it shows up as a change. Change toleranceIf an object in a drawing changes, even if it is moved by the tiniest amount, 1mm for example, it shows up as a change. The change tolerance feature enables you to ignore changes that are less than a certain size. You can set what that value is. The value is based on a ratio of the size of the change to the geometric size of the drawing. enables you to ignore changes that are less than a certain size, a value you can set. Drawing entities that have been modified or moved a distance greater than the change tolerance are color-coded more prominently using a primary color. Entities that have been added or removed are also colored prominently to allow members to focus on the important changes in the revision.

Compare drawings using the Digital Light Table

When comparing graphical file formats such as .PDF or rasterAn image file of type .PNG, .JPG, .BMP, .GIF, or .TIFF. files that do not contain object IDs, or when comparing CAD files that are not successive versions of each other, you can use the Digital Light Table to graphically isolate and color-code the changes. The Digital Light Table does this by performing a pixel-by-pixel analysis of each file and color-coding the pixels that have changed.

When comparing .PDF or raster files, the size, position, and scale of the two files will most likely not be coordinated and you will need to align the two drawings before they can be effectively compared.

Important compare information

• External referencesDrawing files often reference other files, including other drawings, as well as plot styles, images, standards, and font files associated with the drawing. Those references, or dependencies, are simply an embedded record of the path to the referenced objects or files. are included as part of the compare criteria. When an external reference is different between two host drawings that are otherwise the same, the host drawings are shown as changed.

• You can search for matching files (files that are the same or similar) before you compare a file to the baseline. Select Find > All Versions of This File from the Tasks panel of various activity centers to open the Search Results window to use this feature.

• You can compare .TXT files.

Compare topics

●        Batch compare drawings

●        Compare a document set

●        Compare a project file from the Document Sets activity center

●        Compare drawings using the Digital Light Table

●        Compare project files

●        Compare project folders

●        Compare record copies

●        Compare revisions of a record document

●        Compare transmittals