Attempting to activate Sketch/Mirror

[campbellblc]

I very happily discovered F360 in June of '18 and have spent 8 or more hours with it, nearly every day (7 days a week) since. I've tried innumerable times to Sketch/Mirror without ever being successful. Is this a feature in development with a place holder on the menu, or are there actually a rare set of circumstances that will invoke it? I've dug through the tutorials and have asked google this question in as many ways as I can think of, all to no avail. Please embarrass me with the "obvious" answer, because the speed and the high degree of accuracy that Sketch/Mirror promises are worth more than my pride. There, that ought to shake Peter Doering out of the trees ;-), I hope!

[HughesTooling]

You need to activate a sketch first, think you are not in sketch mode in the screencast.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

You might want to try the preview UI as it only displays features you can use in the mode you are in.

Help on preview features.

Mark

[jeff_strater]

in addition to what @HughesTooling says, be sure that you are editing the sketch that contains the geometry you want to mirror, as well, because if you are in the wrong sketch, you won't be able to select that geometry to mirror.

I'll go out on a limb and speak for @TrippyLighting here:  He (and most others) would recommend not mirroring stuff at the sketch level (especially something as complex as a gear sketch), because you will bring Fusion's sketcher to its knees.  Instead, do the mirror in the solid modeling environment.  Your life will be less frustrating that way, I believe.

[campbellblc]

Wow Mark, 3 minutes to response! 

I must confess that I'm confused with the info under my preferences,  to wit; "The Fusion 360 Preview program allows you to experience new features on a test-only basis within Fusion 360 before these features are fully released.

To participate in the program, access your Preview settings on the Preview page of the Preferences dialog."

Is Sketch/Mirror a new feature? Thank you Mark, very much though, you are a major contributor to my F360 Knowledge, such as it is.

Bob Campbell, 

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Sorry didn't explain well. Fusion has a new user interface in preview, if you got to your preferences you'll see an option for UI preview. With the new UI you will not see mirror or any other sketch tool unless you are in sketch mode so a little less confusing.

Your problem at the moment is you are not editing a sketch so sketch mirror is not active\available.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

A quick way to make sure you're in the right sketch is right click on the line and select edit sketch then mirror sketch will be active.

Mark

[campbellblc]

....and in minutes, another my esteemed mentors, thank you Jeff!

I don't know if you noticed from my clumsy, 1st time screencast, but I started by highlighting the line that I was trying to mirror, to demonstrate what I perceived as "being active".

And early I discovered that gears are very intensive users of the geometry pool, of course and that's the reason that I have the 96 tooth ring gear turned off, though I'm not sure that nullifies it's state of activity.

I can live with this easily, happy to do so, I just so wanted to take advantage of Sketch/Mirror...oh well.

Thank you very much again,

Bob Campbell

[campbellblc]

Thanks Mark, I'll continue on your next post just below, I can't keep up.....

Bob Campbell

[campbellblc]

Thank you again, that got "Mirror" to come alive and accept my chosen line,  but then upon clicking "select Mirror Line" below, the construction line that I want to mirror across, becomes inactive. Thank you anyway!

Bob Campbell

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

I suspect that the line you want to mirror about is in a different sketch.  What you describe as "becomes inactive", I think, is the fact that sketch geometry not in the active sketch is dimmed.  If that line is in the correct sketch, but you just want to use it in the sketch you are editing, you can use Project to project the line from another sketch into the active one.  Then, just use the projection as the mirror line.

[TrippyLighting]

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@jeff_strater wrote:

I'll go out on a limb and speak for @TrippyLighting here:  He (and most others) would recommend not mirroring stuff at the sketch level (especially something as complex as a gear sketch), because you will bring Fusion's sketcher to its knees.  Instead, do the mirror in the solid modeling environment.  Your life will be less frustrating that way, I believe.

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Yep I would emphasize that point.

However, there's another resign to reduce sketching to the necessary and to work with real geometry. Sketching is application specific and does not transfer across applications.

But it you want to work on geometry in say Alias after concocting in Fusion 360, if you have real geometry. Sketches are lost.

[campbellblc]

Jeff, I can't tell you how impressed that I am with your timely guidance. I apologize for my lack of clarity, below is what I was referring to, with the screen tightened down to closely group all. Hope this conveys what I meant but didn't show. As can be seen, I also turned off all 3D for this iteration.

Crazy, but I'm pleased to have gotten to the final step, "Select Mirror line", before it failed, close enough to keep hope alive.

Thank you very much,

Bob Campbell

[HughesTooling]

As @jeff_strater  said above all sketch geometry needs to be in the active sketch including the mirror line. In your screencast you have 10 to 15 sketches visible and the mirror line you're trying to pick is in a different sketch.

Perhaps you should open a new empty design and experiment with only one sketch then come back to this.

Mark

[campbellblc]

Thank's so much Peter, I'm off to explore "Alias", of which I know nothing.

Best regards, 

Bob Campbell

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

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@HughesTooling wrote:

...In your screencast you have 10 to 15 sketches visible and the mirror line you're trying to pick is in a different sketch.

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I might add that none of these sketches are appropriately named (Fusion 360 R.U.L.E #2) and the might well be the reason there are so many 😉

[TrippyLighting]

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@campbellblc wrote:

Thank's so much Peter, I'm off to explore "Alias", of which I know nothing.

Best regards, 

Bob Campbell

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Autodesk Alias

[campbellblc]

Thank you Mark and Jeff, I'm certain that you are right, off to fix the Mirror line so that I can invoke "Solution" for any other poor noob that got sucked down into my rabbit hole. Not to mention having all this clarified for me and being able to utilize Sketch/Mirror, I'll report back.

Bob Campbell

[campbellblc]

....and Peter! Now 3 of you have pointed out what should have been obvious to me, "Mirror Line in different sketch". Also, thank you for the link to Alias.

Thank you very much,

Bob Campbell

[campbellblc]

....and Peter! Now 3 of you have pointed out what should have been obvious to me, "Mirror Line in different sketch". Also, thank you for the link to Alias. I'll get those sketch named too.

Thank you very much,

Bob Campbell