Symetric Mate Shows Fully Constrained But it is not (Attempting to Simply Mirror a Part w/ Constraints but have to use this instead)

[ethanfL67BY]

Hello Autodesk,

Please explain why the symetric mate shows fully constrained and how I can still move it even though there is a white dot and a general prohibition sign that shows up. 

Since I'm posting on the ideas forum, I think this should all be one operation in the miorr comand. I've seen many autodesk forum posts and other people complaining about this for quite a while and nothing has been done.

[ethanfL67BY]

I figured that I am going to use the pattern assembly feature to mirror my simple reused components that don't need to be flipped. I'm going to change my parameters so that it changes while I edit them.

Don't you think that the mirror command should be able to be used here instead of the pattern command??????????? Very DUMB. That's all I can say!!!!!

Autodesk please do something here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are all struggling here!!!!!!!!

[tstout9GFVP]

Watching your video clip, it looks like you are attempting to create a symmetric constraint between opposite faces of the same .ipt file and a center datum plane. Inventor has never allowed this, even though it is highly needed and has been requested as an improvement idea on this forum. The only way Inventor will allow symmetric assembly constraints is if the two faces desired to be symmetric belong to distinctly different .ipt component files.

[ethanfL67BY]

@tstout9GFVP 

Yeah since it only works between different parts, I'm making what seems to be like 1,000s of work planes which is time consuming.

[tstout9GFVP]

I know, and it is slow and frustrating, SolidWorks has had that functionality for decades already. Autodesk takes decades to implement real improvements that the users need desperately.

[ethanfL67BY]

Agreed! We are just switching from SolidWorks to inventor and it's hard finding all of the same functions. So far Inventor is missing out on some big features that SolidWorks had. 

[tstout9GFVP]

Switch back!!!

[ethanfL67BY]

If SolidWorks supports point clouds we would. But SolidWorks just cut ties with Leica last year!!!!!! We are running the last ever version of cloudworx for solidworks. We rely too much on our scan data to lose that functionality. We have been dreading the switch trust me! I'm the guinea pig for our group and it takes about 3-4 times longer to design anything right now!!! ChatGPT and Autodesk forms have always been open on one of my screens trying to learn this darn program. We even had over 100 hrs of training! But trying to figure out how the mirror tool and symmetric tool and content center and .......................... It has taken lots of time. I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it finally but still a newbie. 

[tstout9GFVP]

Everything in Inventor takes 2-3 times as long as in SolidWorks. I used SolidWorks for 20 years, and have been on Inventor for the past 4 years now. I would consider myself a fairly advanced skillset solid modeler, and experienced user of Inventor now. That said, it still takes me 2-3 times longer than similar would take in SolidWorks, and you have to be able to live with that as an organization. The reason I say that is because most places around my area are always pressing engineers and designers to get projects out faster and faster, and I have even seen engineers fired for "being too slow" when Inventor was the root cause. FYI.

[ethanfL67BY]

Thanks for the heads up. I've always heard that inventor is worse than SolidWorks and now here I am! One of the reasons I wanted to work at this company I am with is becasuse they used SolidWorks. But now the switch is happening. 😞

Maybe once SolidWorks has a ball rolling in the point cloud we will head back???