CDD file vs ODX file in vehicle diagnostic

Question

Whats is the difference between .CDD and .ODX file in vehicle diagnostic and what .ODX and .CDD file contains?

Answer 1

A CDD (CANdelaStudio diagnostic description) is a proprietary file format from the company "Vector Informatik", which can be mainly created/used within tools from Vector.

A ODX (Open diagnostic data exchange) file is a ISO (ISO-22901) and ASAM (ASAM MCD2D) standardized XML-based file format, which can be created/used by tools across different vendors. The purpose of ODX is to ensure that diagnostic data from vehicle manufacturers is independent to the software supplied by any tool manufacturer - so OEMs can theoretically switch their tool vendors without changing their diagnostic data.

The ODX standard has a high flexibility in terms of the structure of data, so that most companies which are working with such data have defined guidelines how their ODX data should be structured (Authoring guidelines). There are tools with converters/import/export functionality available to convert data between these two formats, but due to the high flexibility in the ODX standard it depends on the use-case how well the resulting data fits the expectation.

Both file formats are used to describe the diagnostic interface of ECUs (Electronic Control Units i.e. in vehicles) for development, testing, production, after-sales and service. This data includes but is not limited to:

• the used communication protocol for diagnostics (i.e. UDS, KWP 2000, ...) and the required communication parameters (i.e. baudrate, timings, ...)
• the supported diagnostic services on the ECU and their format/subfunctions
• supported DIDs (Data Identifier) and how the coded-value (i.e. 0x0E 0x00) needs to be interpreted to result in the correct physical value (i.e. 14.0V)
• supported DTCs (Diagnostic Trouble Codes), their corresponding error text & environmental/freeze frame data (data captured when a fault occurred)
• description of different ECU software versions and their differences affecting the diagnostic interface
• how the ECU can be reprogrammed