I would really like to see a toggle switch on the options pane next to "construction" that turns sketching in "mirror mode" on/off, which would be a new option that works like applying a "mirror" over a pre-made sketch but in a reversed workflow. just you would in Sketchbook, first a center line is defined and for as long as the option remains on, sketching on one half of the sketch plane is generating a mirrored duplicate on the other side as you go. (In case a line is perpendicular to the center line and attached coincident with its mirrored copy the line can best merge into one, to my opinion.) Perhaps some discussion will bring forth some more ideas as to how it should work in detail but i think there would be a lot of efficiency potential in this since the majority of my parts are in at least one axis mostly symmetrical, thus I figure I would like to draw in a "mostly symmetrical" fashion, just like in sketchbook.
I know that a lot of people use the current best practice of simply sketching half of their profile which requires imagining the object cropped in one half during the creation process, and then generating a mirror afterwards. this seems an unneccessary load on a user's focus while trying to be creative efficiently. I just think that if i can see what im doing on both halves of the center in real-time while sketching i can be more accurate on the total width scaling of my object and constrains and dimensions can be applied in double or quadruple effect by one operation.
Ive captured a screenshot of some sketch and tried to indicate the steps it would require to make this if the function to sketch in 1 or 2 centerlines were available, to illustrate my idea.
- I draw the first line horizontally
- i turn mirror on and select the horizontal line as center axis
- I draw the line from the origin up which generates a mirrored entity downwards merging into one line
- I change the mirror axis from horizontal to the new vertical line
- i draw the left half of the contour which generates the right half copies in real-time
- I can apply the dimensions and constraints as bi-lateral total values directly after drawing the line entities
the circles are not included in the steps because i thought it became too cluttered but you can imagine that turning on both mirror axis and then placing 1 circle would effectively place 4 circles with "symmetry" constraints over both axis, all in just one click. By simply toggling "mirror mode" off again I would just be continuing on the sketch as normal.
The combination with "construction mode" should also not be a problem but when mirrored entities are selected and swiched to construction lines afterwards it should not affect the copies.
To assist in drawing a revolve feature profile sketch it seems useful to be able to draw the contour half in solid lines with a construction linetype mirror copy. but maybe thats too much i dont know.
In addition, I would like to see the difference between mirrorer and mirroree more clearly, preferably by change of line color or type to identify which was parent and which was child, to better comprehend how the sketch is constrained.
