Comparing ECAD Designs > Using ECAD Compare > About Comparisons in ECAD
  
About Comparisons in ECAD
Identify design differences and incremental design changes within the ECAD domain and across the ECAD and MCAD domains using the Compare tool. You must have an ECAD Compare license to use the ECAD Compare tool. Your settings for the comparisons depend on the types of designs you compare. These could be, for instance, two iterations of the same design, or a comparison of a PCB Layout file with its Schematic counterpart. The configuration determines the items that are compared and the settings of the comparisons.
Comparisons are object-based and image-based. An object-based comparison specifies the types and attributes of objects to compare. An image-based comparison specifies the layers or sheets to compare graphically. Your current default ECAD unit is applied to all files that you compare. You can compare entire designs, or you can specify an area to compare. You can name a comparison view.
Compare these viewables using the Creo View client or the command line:
Two viewables from different files. For example, compare two EDA files.
Two viewables in the same PVS or PVZ file.
A viewable and a baseline IDX file.
A file from Windchill and a local file.
Two files from Windchill. When you compare two files from Windchill, you can store the results to Windchill as well.
After you select the viewables to compare, Quick Results appear in the graphics area with differences highlighted. The differences shown in the Quick Results are visible changes. The Full Results, on the other hand, are transactions in comparison results. To view the Full Results, you must select a configuration, and then run the full comparison. The Full Results appear in these locations:
Graphics area
Compare Results tab of the upper data panel
Difference Details tab of the lower data panel
For more information on working with the results views, see Working with the ECAD Comparison Results View. You can save and share the results, including a review state and comments, as a PVZ file. To share the results of an MCAD-ECAD comparison with a Creo Parametric user who has an ECX license, save the results as an IDX file.