Part and Product Comparison

Part and Product Comparison

The Design Compare command helps designers to load several versions of the same Part or of the same assembly in CATIA and to analyze the geometrical differences through standard CATIA tools.  

Launching Design Compare through SmarTeam - Editor

CATIA must be launched and connected to SmarTeam before performing the following steps: 

1. Select a CATIA Part in the Document Tree.
2. Select one or more revisions of this Part in the Revision tab.
3. From the right-click menu, select CATIA and then Design Compare.
   
   
   A message is displayed, asking what kind of comparison the designer wishes to perform:
   
   
   When you click YES:  All Part revisions will be added into a new root Product. To facilitate the “Geometrical comparison”, you can use the comparison tools available in the CATIA DMU Space Analysis workbench.
   
   
   
   
   When you click NO: CATIA Parts will be loaded as separate windows in a CATIA session. To facilitate the Visual Comparison, you can arrange these windows with a “Tile Vertically” configuration:
   

Launching Design Compare through CATIA

Using the Design Compare command through CATIA helps the designer to compare, for example, the latest version with a previous one already loaded into the CATIA session.

Activate CATIA and then perform the following steps: 

1. Select a Part or Product in the CATIA tree and then select Show Profile Card. The SmarTeam profile card is displayed in the CATIA session.
2. Select the latest version of this Part or Product in the Revision tab.
3. From the right-click menu, select CATIA and then Design Compare.
   
   
   The latest version is automatically loaded in a new window into the CATIA session:
   

In order to load different versions of the same document, Design Compare must rename the documents. In the case of a CATProduct, all children are also renamed. Renamed documents are unknown by SmarTeam (SmarTeam icons are not displayed) and are considered as new CATIA documents. Performing a SmarTeam Save on such documents is not permitted.