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Ever have the need to compare the contents of two files? As frustrating as this can be, you can simplify things a bit by using Level Symbology to filter the elements. Let's take a look! Note: The graphics in this article show MicroStation V7. 2002-06-11 Original posting date. 2005-08-08 Updated to include reference adjustment colours in V8.
This short little article was inspired by a recent event where a user inadvertently copied his reference file elements into the active design file. Of course, by the time he had a chance to pound on the Reset button, several hundred elements were copied through. As frustrating as this can be, you can simplify things a bit by using Level Symbology to filter the elements. Let's take a look! The graphics in the slide below shows a few elements in the active file and a few in the reference file....but which is which? That's pretty hard to tell just by looking at the screen and that's why we'll set up the Level Symbology!
Go to the Level Symbology dialog (from the Settings menu item) and set all levels to green and turn ON the Level Symbology switch from the View Attributes dialog.
From the Reference Files dialog, select Settings > Level Symbology and adjust the colours for all levels of the attached reference file to be red.
When you refresh your screen, MicroStation will draw the elements of the active file first in green followed by the reference file elements in red. Since the reference file elements update last, only those elements that do not live in the reference file will remain green on your screen as shown below.
Even though this is a cool way of comparing graphics of two files, you may want to try and locate a copy of the V7 utility DgnCompr from Systems HK which allows you to easily compare pairs of design files and output the following optional results: