What’s Changed

Many times in the course of modifying designs you look at two versions of a design and wonder…. ‘…these look exactly alike – what’s changed?…”

You could have kept a log of changes in the Design Binder or if you use PDMWorks you could have noted what changed when you checked the new version into the vault. But, in the rush to ‘get the job done’, these tasks often get missed.

Not to worry! SolidWorks Utilities ‘compare’ features provide the ability to view differences between designs. These compare utilities include:
• Compare Documents. Compares the properties of two SolidWorks documents (including two configurations of the same model or different PDMWorks versions). You can compare two documents of the same type, or of different types. This utility identifies differences in file properties, document properties, and so on.
• Compare Features. Identifies differences in solid features between two versions of the same part. This utility identifies unique and modified features in both versions of the part.
• Compare Geometry. Identifies geometric differences between two versions of the same part. This utility identifies unique and modified faces in both parts. It also computes the common volume of the two parts (or assemblies) and the volume of material added and material removed.

These handy tools can save you from doing tedious forensic analysis of complex designs. To learn more about this capability simply review the SolidWorks on-line help topic ‘SolidWorks Utilities’.

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