Exercise 15: Advanced selection with Find Similar and Nearness Settings

Instead of filtering on additional attributes, you can change the criteria used for calculating nearness to take account of different requirements.

Note: Find Similar is only enabled in the advanced Level 3 databases. This exercise assumes you are using the Level 3 Polymer database from the last exercise.
  1. Find records similar to Polypropylene (Copolymer, Conductive, 5% Carbon powder)
    1. Open the datasheet and click Find Similar.
  2. Re-calculate the list of alternative materials, taking Electrical resistivity into account and prioritizing results with a resistivity that is the same or lower than the reference material
    1. Click the Nearness settings link on the Records Similar to dialog.
    2. Under Electrical Properties, select Electrical resistivity. Set it to 100% when Same or lower, and increase the Weighting factor to 2.
    3. Click OK to generate the new results.
    Note: These results are conceptually different to those from the previous exercise. We have ranked similar materials, taking into account the resistivity, but there is not a fixed upper limit as there was when filtering using the Limit Stage. Materials with a higher resistivity than the reference will still be included in these results.