AutoCAD’s COMPARE Feature: Comparing DWG Files that have CET Furniture.

Since we don’t work in a vacuum and will eventually need our CET drawings to play nice with AutoCAD, I wanted to share with you a feature that came along in AutoCAD 2019 called Compare. [BTW, AutoCAD 2021 is the current version and will most likely be Cap-compliant by June.]

OVERVIEW

Briefly, let’s say you have a CET drawing of the customer’s As-built (or, say, Phase I) and a CET drawing of your stunning and optimized Reconfig (or equally amazing, Phase II) … including ProjectSymbols components!

In these CET drawings you may have Imported the baseplan .DWG, or maybe not. Either way, this will work.

You now need to provide the customer AutoCAD .DWG files, so in CET, you Export As_Built.DWG, and Export Reconfig.DWG. CET Command: File >Import & Export >Export Drawing. [My drawing cleanup and Import/Export presentation can be found at Configura’s CET Experience Speakers page.]

Are ya with me so far? …

INSIGHTS:

• This works even if you didn’t import a .DWG into CET first; any .DWG will work.
• This works in AutoCAD LT (see my previous Post from March 2, 2020).
• This works with 2020 Cap furniture, too.

So now …

In AutoCAD, open the As_Built.DWG you Exported from CET.

Then…

Type COMPARE and select the Reconfig.DWG. That’s it!

You’ll probably be able to figure it all out from there, but here are a few things I wanted to pass along.

INSIGHTS:

• Draw Order button toggles front/back condition.
• The light bulb toggles On/Off for respective drawing.
• You can change the color for each drawing or Common condition.
• You can open DWG 1 or 2 independently.
• You can save the Compare drawing.
• After saving the comparison, if one of the drawings being compared changes, the most recent drawing will NOT be loaded. The compare drawings are INSERTED not XREF’D, therefore, you can edit them in the Block Editor.

Sidebar: If you take a look at the AutoCAD 2021 link above, you'll notice that Xrefs are now included in the Compare feature.

And as has been the case since before the turn of the century, I’m available for training on AutoCAD or 2020 product, or a goodly portion of CET Designer stuff. Let me know if you think this was worth a slice of your #WFH day, just so I know you’re out there and paying attention. ;-}

Carry on, y’all!

Michael