Sync Existing Projects with Project Template Changes – Project Compare

Autodesk has added a new Project Compare feature in Plant 3D 2022. This is a more proficient way to update existing Plant 3D projects to have new changes that you added to your project template or from another existing project.

I will walk you through the process in which to use Project Compare to update existing projects. It is important to note that this feature is in Plant 3D 2022 and future releases only.

Let’s get started.

I have created two Plant 3D projects. One is a template project (My Template Project) and an existing project (My Existing Project).

Let’s make a change to the My Template Project.

1. Open My Template Project.
2. Right-click on the root project folder and select Project Setup from the popup menu.
3. When the Project Setup dialog opens browse to Plant 3D DWG Settings > Plant 3D Class Definitions > P3d Line Group.

Next, we’re going to add a property to the Line Number Tag Format.

4. Highlight Line Number listed in the Tag format area
5. Select the Modify… button.
6. In the Tag Format Setup dialog, change Number of Subparts from 1 to 2.
7. Make the changes shown in image below

That is the only change we need to make at this time.

8. Select OK to exit Tag Format Setup
9. Select Apply then OK to save and exit the Project Setup

We have an existing project needing to be updated with the changes we made to My Project Template.

10. Right-Click on the Project root folder in the Project Manager and select Project Compare… from the popup menu.
11. The first dialog ask you to select the project to compare.

12. Since we are already in the My Template Project, we will select My Existing Project. This dialog opens

Currently the dialog above shows that the My Template Project will get updated. This is wrong. We want to update the My Existing Project. Pay attention to what this notification is telling you.

13. Go ahead and switch the Current Project and Compare to: options shown in the upper left hand corner of dialog.

Change from:

To this:

Under the Compare Summery of this dialog you will see an object tree showing the difference between the two projects.

14. In the compare summery, select Piping(3D) > Classes and expand P3d Line Group. You will see the changes we made. See below.

15. Select Accept All

16. Select Sync Review. This allows you a final review to make sure these are the changes you want to make.
17. If these are the changes you want to make select Sync Now.

If everything goes as planned you should see the Project Sync Successful shown below.

Now if we open Project Setup for the My Existing Project you’ll notice that it has been updated with the config changes from the My Template Project.