Mirror object and keep links

[Anonymous]

Hello!

Is there any way to mirror components and keeping the links to the original files? I have an assembly that I want to mirror, as the joints are not easily built up again. However, doing this creates new components without links to the original components, and as such appear as separate components when creating a BOM in a drawing. Is there any way to solve this?

Thanks for the help!

[Anonymous]

I suppose it depends on whether you expect that behaviour or not.

I agree though, I'm sure SOLIDWORKS has a "rotated mirror with links" feature and it would be very useful to see that replicated in Fusion.

[engineer1984]

I think its an issue of knowing what the software is doing and then choosing the right method. I think there are generally two camps to this software:

1) People that draft / draw for a living / hobby
2) People that use this software to design something that they then build for a living / hobby.

Category 2 people, like me, find it frustrating that the there is no clear indication of what's happening until it is too late. Category 1 people think it's pretty obvious. Mirrored, duh.

My perspective is that if new users are consistently making the same mistakes using the thing, then the design of the thing needs to be modified. It's like when you go to open a door and it doesn't open and then you realize you were pulling or pushing but the door opens the opposite way. You aren't the one to blame. You were naturally selecting the correct method, but whoever installed the door installed it backwards.

While this is more complicated than a door, it seems that most of us people who use this software to get from point a to b make certain assumptions and unless we are all complete idiots those assumptions come from somewhere. So shouldn't they be addressed vs having the software designer patronize the users for not understanding their technical niche?

[Anonymous]

I completely agree. Although I do find that, on the whole, fusion is much more intuitive to use than other packages available because it's so simple and uncluttered.

I still hope there is a selection added to allow retaining links in a mirror. At least then, seeing a prompt to retain links would make the user question which option was appropriate and make the default behaviour clearer.

[Anonymous]

I've been playing about with this some more today and have a few more comments so thought I'd add them as a reply to myself for the record:

The functionality for mirror is pretty cool and didn't behave as I expected.
In one case today, I had two assemblies that were essentially an As Drawn and Opposite Hand.

I was able to:

• model the component in the main assembly file,
• "Save As Copy" to effectively create a stand-alone assembly file - call this assembly A1.
• Re-Import this new assembly into the master model and add a few joints.
• Mirror it to create the OH version - Call this assembly A2 (note, this didn't create a linked version as expected -> see my original post below).
• Modify the A1 assembly to add in some features I'd missed out.
• When I loaded the main assembly file and updated, both A1 and A2 were updated with the new features.
  This is pretty cool as I was expecting to have to re-mirror and re-create A2.

However,

There were tens of occasions throughout the day when I needed to create an exact copy about a plane (i.e. the exact same sub-assembly file, re-imported to the other side of my part).
Doing this using the Move/Copy feature was a massive pain and loads more difficult than just mirroring.

In conclusion:
The inability to create a copy of a linked file in a mirror operation is definitely a shortcoming in the software.

[vrema01]

Great feedback. This aligns with the previous comment about mirroring (take a mirror image at that point). Therefore, any changes you want to mirror need to be made before taking a mirror image if you want them to reflect the same object.

This is good information to know.