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pmalone1-Visitor
1-Visitor
July 24, 2017
Question

How to mirror a sketch to flip the sketch?

  • July 24, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 14352 views

I have sketch that has objects on the wrong side so I want to mirror it so that it is a simple mirror image.

I do not want the original entities to remain as is.

What happens is it it mirrors the sketch on top of itself so that i have the original sketch entities

and the mirrored sketch entities.

I do not see an option to "not copy" the entities during the mirror.

Is this possible?

 

Please advise...

 

 

4 replies

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dschenken1-Visitor
1-Visitor
July 24, 2017

The function you are looking for would be called 'flip,' which Sketcher doesn't have.

 

Mirror always makes a duplicate - that's what mirrors do.

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pmalone1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
July 24, 2017

Plus 1 for Solidworks and Autocad then....

 

thanks for the reply..

L
llie17-Peridot
17-Peridot
July 24, 2017

Correct that there is no flip option because it doesn't know what to flip the sketch around. The only thing you can do is the following.

Create a centerline, then use the mirror, and delete the original sketch.

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pmalone1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
July 24, 2017

My bad in not specifying that I had created a centerline for the mirror.

I understand that it is required for the mirror...

 

I was just hoping there was a secret key sequence <ALT> or <CTRL> or some other

hidden menu somewhere or some other command that would allow me to remove/delete

the original objects upon completion of the mirror command...

 

Based upon what other programs can do I expect it will be an option in some future release.

 

I guess that this the bad part about using so many different cad programs..

We want them all the work the same way or at least have the same options...

 

I do not have the luxury of picking which program I use.

each project has it's own "specifications and requirements."

Solidworks here, Inventor there, Autocad here, Creo there...

 

Looks good on a resume to have all the different skill sets though..

 

 

D
dschenken1-Visitor
1-Visitor
July 24, 2017

To save some time you can save the sketch and then place that saved sketch with -1 for scaling the X or Y as you desire. I'm pretty sure this works.

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psobejko1-Visitor
1-Visitor
July 24, 2017

Sometimes it might be simpler to just flip the sketch view direction...

1) Edit definition of the sketch

2) Go into "Sketch Setup"

3) "Flip" sketch view direction

 

This works best if the sketch was defined such that it's orientation is defined by a "Top" direction.

If it was defined by "Right" or "Left", you probably will have to flip those from L/R or vice versa and your sketch should be most of the way there ...

 

Now you still need to shift it into the "correct" position.  If the sketch is badly constrained/constructed then that shifting step can go quite wrong; in those cases, I recommend at this point just box-selecting the geometry and then doing the "rotate/resize" sketch operation.

 

 

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Aaron_Daniel14-Alexandrite
14-Alexandrite
July 26, 2017

As usual, there are no functional secrets to do a sketcher mirror - just work-arounds.  To accomplish what you describe, I usually create a centerline adjacent to, and dimensioned to the desired mirror reference, create the mirror of the required sketch entities, re-sellect and change the original sketched entities to construction entities and then finish the mirror.  Then change the mirror centerline to dimension of zero.  The original entities remain as construction references.  The reason I initially create essentially a temporary centerline within the sketch is to avoid assumptions by sketcher.

 

This may not accomplish your desired goal.  It is not elegant or concise, it's just a work-around that can get the job done in some cases.

 

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