- [Instructor] We're starting another very short chapter
in our AutoCAD essential training course.
And what we're going to take a look at now is a couple
of drawing management tools
that you'll probably find really useful.
They've been available in AutoCAD for the last few versions.
So if you're using a much older version of AutoCAD,
you probably won't have this particular functionality.
So what we've got at the moment is a very,
very simple drawing in front of us.
It's called simpleobjects_001.
You'll also notice
that we've got a simpleobjects_002 open as well.
Minus the hexagon.
There's a reason for that.
So make sure that you open up both drawings in AutoCAD.
You need to download them from the library.
You know the drill.
Download both files from the library,
pop 'em in the same folder
and then open them both up in AutoCAD at the same time.
So you should have simpleobjects_001.
There's your file tab there.
Simpleobjects_002.
There's your file tab there.
Now, when you've got both of the files open,
what you want to do is make sure that simpleobjects_001
is the current drawing, not simpleobjects_002.
You want the drawing with the hexagon in it.
I hasten to add that one there.
So you want 001
with our little pink hexagon right there like so.
And what I'm going to show you is a lovely tool
called DWG compare.
It's on the collaborate tab in AutoCAD on the ribbon there.
And there's DWG compare right there like so.
And the DWG compare is incredibly useful.
I'm going to click on DWG compare now.
And what I want to do is I want to compare my 001 drawing,
which I've got current here with the file tabs,
against the 002 drawing.
So you're pointing to the folder where both files are saved
and you're selecting the 002 file.
When I click on open, the screen changes
and we're now in DWG compare.
And what you've got
is you've got this little sort of box here that's locked.
It's a revision cloud but it's letting me know
that that hexagon is obviously not in one of the drawings.
So if I go to my settings here, not in current drawing,
only in current drawing, draw order,
cloud display, et cetera.
So if you look at those settings at the moment
you can see we've got a green hexagon
which shows that it's only in the current drawing.
If it was red, it wouldn't be in the current drawing.
Anything that's gray, like the circle and the rectangle
behind this little dialogue box are showing no differences.
The rev cloud display
that highlights the differences is currently rectangular.
I could change that to polygonal.
And what would happen there is that would actually take it
around the hexagon slightly more.
But what it's doing there you'll see is it's kind of going
with the vertices of the hexagon.
So it'll stay sort of rectangular if you see what I mean.
So what I can do there is change that to polygonal like so.
Maybe update the size, make it bigger, smaller, et cetera.
I can also filter for things like hatch and text.
So when I've come back in here,
you can see it's still highlighting that like so.
There's my rev cloud there.
Now what I can also do is I can jump to that particular,
obviously highlighted change in the drawings.
If I click on the arrows, it'll zoom in on that.
If I zoom back obviously, and go forward, there's only one.
So I can't really do much else with the arrows.
What I can also do is I can import objects
from the compared drawing.
So what'll happen there is I can import the hexagon
into my drawing 002 if I wanted to.
I can also generate an export snapshot drawing.
So if I click on this,
what'll happen is it'll give me comparison objects 001
versus simpleobjects_002.dwg file.
And if I save that, that'll just save it
in the folder where the drawings are right now.
So I click on save and the background processing
of the comparison snapshot drawing is ready to start.
When I click on continue,
what'll happen is that'll save that file.
And there's my snapshot process in complete.
I can open the drawing and as you can see there,
it's zoomed in on that particular comparison.
If I just double click on the wheel there
you can see that I can zoom out
and still use my zoom tools quite happily
when I'm in the compare snapshot drawing.
I can now click on the little cross there.
That'll close that
and I can close that particular snapshot drawing file.
And do I want to save the changes to that?
Well, I'll just say yes for now.
That's fine.
So we're back in our simpleobjects_002.
And there's our simpleobjects_001
Still with DWG compare running
so I can click on the green tick and close it.
Double click on the wheel to zoom extends.
Roll out a bit on the wheel and you can see we're back
to our original three objects
in the simpleobjects_001 drawing.
And we've got the simpleobjects_002 drawing
like we had at the start.