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Treat "Mirror" in an assembly like a pattern (maintain symmetry)

Treat "Mirror" in an assembly like a pattern (maintain symmetry)

Right now there is no good way to create an automated mirror of several parts in an assembly. The current "Mirror" command really just creates a mirrored Derived part (or a mirrored assembly) for parts or assemblies which cannot be made symmetric by simply being re-oriented. This is useful but it's not what most people want when trying to perform a "Mirror" operation in an assembly.

 

The mirror command does not maintain the positional symmetric relationship between the original and mirrored parts in an assembly. It should. If I change the position of the original part, the mirrored part should reflect this change on its side of the mirror plane.

 

Just like with a Pattern, there should be no constraints involved. I should simply have to pick the components to mirror, pick the mirror plane, and Inventor should look at each part, and essentially ROTATE it about the appropriate axis and stick it on the other side of the mirror plane. If there are sub-assemblies or parts that can't be made symmetric about the plane by simply being rotated, then Inventor should give me the option to do what the Mirror command currently does as a part of the Mirror operation. But then the Mirror operation should appear in the browser tree as a "Mirror pattern" which can be modified later, and which will maintain symmetry between the original and mirrored instances.

 

 

Note: I'm aware that there are some instances when a 180-degree circular pattern will accomplish this, but that doesn't always work. If I want a left/right mirror of several components, a 180-degree circular pattern about the vertical axis will only create that symmetry if the components are also symmetric on the forward and rearward sides of the rotation axis. If they're not, then the differences between the front and back will be flipped on the mirrored side. Only a true "mirror pattern" will create left/right symmetry in this case.

95 Comments
dusan.naus.trz
Advisor

Solid Edge ST5 since 2013 can already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZZNGAAzQzs

 

Solid works 2010 since 2010 can already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zg5iCr6fo8

 

maybe in Inventor 2018 ???

dusan.naus.trz
Advisor

solid edge ST9 2016 can better mirror the components, mirror sketch 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce2NgnsM5ec

 

also maybe in Inventor 2018 ?

dusan.naus.trz
Advisor

Hi all, maybe in Inventor 2019? It would be great.

MikeKovacik4928
Advisor

See post below

 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/mirror-constraints-for-parts/td-p/7376668

 

what a wonderful idea this would be, people seem to be discovering and commenting all the time.

I was pointed to this idea from my post above.

 

Please implement it, it is soooo logical and would save oodles of time!!

 

Michael Kovacik
AutoCAD 2d & 3d (29 yrs)& Inventor (7 yrs)
Manufacturing (30 yrs) Draughtsman/Designer
Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate 2018
Johannesburg, South Africa

Autocad 2018, Inventor Pro 2018

Impossible only means you haven't found
the solution yet

dusan.naus.trz
Advisor

A question for Autodesk. Hello, please let me know when this feature will be implemented. It would do much to help me work together with mirroring the idw drawing. Please term expectations. Thank you for answer.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Folks,

 

In a normal assemble of parts and their corresponding mirrored parts, Inventor will not resolve the constraints.  I have noticed that on one side of the parts the constraints are placed but are not resolved.  Big red X.  I have noticed that it may work on one side of the part but not the other sides of the part.

 

Thanks folks

 

Dylan T. Rogers

jingyi.liu
Alumni

Hi Dylan Thanks for your feedback, I think your request is similar to below master idea on mirror  improvement. 

 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/treat-quot-mirror-quot-in-an-assembly-like-a-pattern-m...

 

Regards,

Jingyi

Xun.Zhang
Alumni
Anonymous
Not applicable

Another good way to state this is that the mirror command in assemblies should work the same way as mirror in sketches... but 3D.

andrewdroth
Advisor

Mirror components is such a let down.

 

I want to mirror an assembly, but reuse all of it's parts. But I can't do that without manually creating it from scratch.

 

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/0a563817-7adb-4fd6-adb2-07f4e1e7b749

RStancescu
Collaborator

Is anything changed in 2020 release?

benedikt_zeilinger
Enthusiast

This is insane. That is this meager functionality is not yet included is such a huge letdown for a professional program. This should really be integrated with the next release. Otherwise i won't go to another company that uses inventor.

dusan.naus.trz
Advisor
karthur1
Mentor

SW is ahead of Autodesk in this area for sure.  Look at the link from dusan.naus above.

activeradio
Contributor

I used Solidworks from c.1996 or 1997 (some of my work was used in promotional material for SWX 1998 including the front page of the User Manual IIRC! 🙂 through to 2015 when I moved to an area using Inventor.  As far as I can recall, Solidworks had a proper mirror components command right from day one.

The functionality of this in Inventor is almost completely useless.  While Inventor does have some really cool advanced features, it really falls down on the basic stuff, core functionality like Mirror Components that people have been requesting for years and the competitor has had for decades.

...and meanwhile this item is STILL only in the 'gathering support' phase!

Anonymous
Not applicable

@activeradio You nailed it! After using SW and Inventor, I always feel more satisfied using inventor... However there are just some things that they should have gotten to a long time ago... (*cough* material/appearance libraries)

nearly a decade to implement mid-plane plates faces... It seems like they are working very hard to develop this software and be innovative, but take zero consideration of user complaints, despite all the forum threads... almost like they are waiting for a designer in their conference room to say "Hey Steve, I have an idea... what if we should make plate faces able to extrude mid-plane... like extrusions..." "Janice, I think you are onto something!"

Anonymous
Not applicable

We can't let this idea thread die. The mirror pattern in Inventor is completely useless and a plain joke unless you are mirroring an entire assembly AND creating mirror parts of everything. I work with both Solidworks and Inventor equally, both at the same time. While Inventor is vastly superior for all drawings and properties related stuff, it is years behind when it comes to speed of modeling. But lets focus on the biggest problem of Inventor when compared to Solidworks, mirroring. I can live without "copy with constraints" or "sketch driven patterns" (I know there is a work around for this, but it is unintiutive and tedious). But missing a real function mirror pattern like Solidworks and other CAD  is simply preposterous.

 

About 95% of all my assemblies have MANY parts that needs to be mirrored, both as a real mirrored part or just mirrored constraints. Inventor is useless in regards to mirrored constraints. How is this possible when Solidworks have had this feature for like 10 years? Not only does it perfectly mirror the position of any parts you create a mirrored part of, it also perfectly mirror the position of parts you reuse, AND give you 4 different orientation options to make sure it mirrors the position the right way. All of this as part of a pattern feature (like linear) so you don't have to manually constrain parts individually.

Until this function is not added I will never accept any other job offer to work with inventor, for me this is the biggest flaw!

dusan.naus.trz
Advisor

I train Inventor. Customers ask me almost every training. When there will be two mirroring topics hotová? This topic and this https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/derived-parts/idi-p/3801906. Solidworks has a lot of things to do and when will it have Inventor? What is the difference between a designer, a teacher and a businessman, a programmer? The businessman and programmer may not care because they don't work in that program.

Justinas.Storta
Contributor

And still we get 2021 version and still this there is no improvement of mirror function. I worked with SW more than 4 years and went to Inventor, its biggest mistake of my life, so much ahead is Solidworks. This topic is 5 or even more years old and still nothing. SW updated mirror function maybe 4 times but Inventor still same useless. Why to create mirror part with flows in orbit like plastic bag, separately?

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