Symmetric constraint on a 3D body

[Anonymous]

Hi, I am wondering if it is possible (and how) to force a 3D body to be symmetric about a plane. I tried the following:
- created a sketch for 1/2 of the body, and rotated it 360 degrees around its rotation symmetry axis
- then mirrored the 1/2 of the body about a plane (which is perpendicular to the previous rotation symmetry axis)
Everything nice so far. However, if I make tapped holes on one side, these holes do not appear on the other side. I would like my solid to remain symmetric, i.e. whenever I create a feature on one half, it should automatically appear on the other side.
Thanks a lot
Daniel

[harco]

If you can, pull the holes feature above the mirror feature.
Probably won't work, so pull up end of part above mirror then make you holes and pull down end of part below mirror.
Make sure mirror is entire solid and not just features.
This should work.
Any features that need to be mirrored must exist before the mirror or they cannot be selected.

edit
If the hole is not based on features in the mirror it can be pulled up, also if as I said the mirror is "entire solid" not just features the hole will be added to the mirror automatically.
see image Edited by: harco on Feb 1, 2010 10:02 PM

[Paul.Normand]

The statement - "Any features that need to be mirrored must exist before the mirror or they cannot be selected." is true. The key word in the statement is "selected". Inventor never automatically adds features to a mirror - the user must select them.

Best Regards,

Paul Normand (Autodesk)

[Anonymous]

Hi,
Thanks for the answers. The 'pull up the End of object' approach proved to be useful and working, and got me (a newbie) closer to understanding the way Investor works.
The 'pull up the features you want to mirror above the mirror operation' does not work (as predicted by the author itself :-), although it also seems to be logical, thinking in terms of a sequence of operations on the object. Could be a nice feature to add, if not conflicting with other things.
Thanks again.
Daniel

[Anonymous]

You cannot drag a feature that is dependent on another feature above the
feature that "owns" the dependency. Hope this is understandable....

Sometimes the dependency can be reassigned to another feature higher in
the tree.
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Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
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[JDMather]

>'pull up the features you want to mirror above the mirror operation' does not work

Well as Paul pointed out, it probably will work, but these were not a part of your selection set to begin with so you simply need to edit the Mirror feature to update the selection set.