topic Re: Mirror Project - direction not working in Revit Architecture Forum

Mirror Project - direction not working

jasonswolfe — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 15:13:21 GMT

I've got a slightly strange one - I've got a project that I'm trying to mirror, and for some reason it will only mirror east-west (around a N-S axis). Regardless of which option I pick (including the northeast to southwest and northwest to southeast options), it mirrors about the N-S axis. And of course I need to mirror it about the E-W axis. This project is in early SD, so there's not that much information in there, and I'm not worried about breaking things with the mirror, but I just can't get it to mirror in the right direction.

I've mirrored projects in the past without this kind of issue (there have been some issues, but nothing major - just some items to clean up after mirroring).

I'm sure I'm just doing something incorrectly - I'm relatively new to Revit - but it's a little baffling.

Thanks,

Jason

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

curtisridenour — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 15:47:41 GMT

is the disjoin button checked?

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

jasonswolfe — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 16:07:32 GMT

@curtisridenour I'm not sure I understand the question? I don't see a disjoin button as part of the mirror project command - it just pops up the window with the four mirror direction options. And to clarify - it does appear to be mirroring, but it's always E-W regardless of which direction option I pick.

I deleted everything out as a test, and just drew in 4 walls to show what's going on. I mirrored the project both N-S and E-W to show that the results are the same.

Also - I opened up another random project and it mirrored correctly, so it appears to be something specific with this project/file.

Thanks,

Jason

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

curtisridenour — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 16:11:50 GMT

Yeah you are correct. Disjoin is for the move command that sometimes causes issues. Have you tried toggling the copy button to see if it does anything?

My initial though is that something is constrained with a dimension in some way.

Another test would be to move your content and have the Disjoin button checked and then try to mirror it N/S

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

jasonswolfe — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 17:57:32 GMT

@curtisridenour Just to clarify - this is mirroring the project using the "Mirror project" command in the Manage tab, under Project Location. I think what you're referencing are the options associated with the normal mirror command. As far as I'm aware the "Mirror Project" command shouldn't have any issues with constraints, joins, etc. because (in theory, at least) everything is being mirrored.

I was actually able to get the test file to behave finally, but I don't know what I did - I was just going between different views, and it finally decided to mirror in the correct direction. I still can't get my actual file to work.

Thanks,

Jason

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

curtisridenour — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 18:54:01 GMT

Well now I feel silly. In 11 years of Revit I have never seen or heard about that button. I am very happy you have got it to work.

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

jasonswolfe — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 18:58:41 GMT

Ha! It's still not working on my real project - just on the test file. That probably means that it's something to do with the types of objects in the model, but I don't know how to go about figuring out what could be causing the problem.

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

curtisridenour — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 19:00:50 GMT

well there is the brute force method of removing one element at a time and trying to mirror it.

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

Mike.FORM — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 20:53:46 GMT

Since you are in early stages and presumably do not have much annotations done you could try making a new file. Then link in your revit model, mirror the link and then bind the link to bring it into the new file.

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

SteveKStafford — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 21:39:37 GMT

That sounds like something built on a reference plane doesn't want to "flip" as part of the command.
Try linking a copy of the file into the project and mirroring the link. Then use Bind Link, see if that will work instead?

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

jasonswolfe — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 12:49:11 GMT

@SteveKStafford I deleted all of the reference planes in the project as a test, but the behavior is the same. I don't have anything locked to any reference planes, so it shouldn't be an issue regardless. This is using the "mirror project" command which, in theory, should be able to deal with that easily. And it's not that it's throwing up errors - it says it's successfully processed the mirror project command. And it is mirroring the project - it's just mirroring in the wrong direction.

Again - not looking for a workaround. I just want to understand why a tool is misbehaving so that in the future it will work correctly when I need it.

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

SteveKStafford — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 17:17:20 GMT

Deleting the reference planes wouldn't resolve an issue related to a hosted element that won't mirror in both directions, it means the host is "lost" and the element would report "not associated" instead of the name of the reference plane.

The Mirror Project command is doing an individual mirror for every element, imagine trying to mirror everything yourself one item at a time. I've encountered elements that would mirror (or move) in one axis only. Usually it's because of a "connection" or relationship with other elements that restricts the movement. With move we get a disjoin option to break away from such relationships.

If mirror won't do so in one axis only, I surmise that there is at least one element that won't mirror in that direction on it's own either. Figuring out which one that is...that's the hard part. To pin it down you could start by saving the project as a separate new file for destructive testing. Delete one half of the model and see if that mirrors as desired. If it does then you know the problem child is in the half you deleted. Narrow the scope until you've isolated it/them.

I'd be suspicious of any in-place content (massing), if any. I'd also look at any Design Options, groups (assemblies) and phased elements.

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

jasonswolfe — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 19:47:44 GMT

Just following up on my own problem so that if someone comes here they'll hopefully have the solution. I reached out to Autodesk support and they were able to sort this out.

It turns out that scope boxes were the culprit - they apparently lock true north, so it's not possible to mirror along the east-west axis. I wish that Revit would throw up an error to tell you that. In my case I simply deleted all of the scope boxes and put them back in after mirroring. I think it may also work if you disassociate all views from the scope boxes, but it was simpler for me to just delete them.

Jason

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

SteveKStafford — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 19:53:21 GMT

Thanks for sharing the info!

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

gregory_law — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 22:41:34 GMT

Jason, thanks so much for sharing the solution to the problem. Trying to resolve this wasted a lot of time as you know .

Greg

Re: Mirror Project - direction not working

Mjones974PY — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 07:42:11 GMT

I have literally been having an issue where the Mirror Project wasnt working as I would get an Error that said Name cannot contain any of the following characters:
\ : { } [ ] | ; < > ? ` ~
or any of the non-printable characters.

However it wouldnt tell you what or let you okay the action of mirroring. I tried so many different things, and now found your thread, so tried deleting all scope boxes and just like that it worked!!! no idea why this would solve the problem but thank you 🙂