should you use mirror in creo?

[douglasbranstet]

A company I worked for a while back used mirror all the time, the product we were making had to be symmetrical and if you didn't use mirror you did double the work if you wanted to change a feature and the possibility of not having the product symmetrical if you missed something. The company that I work for now actually contracted with this same company to model one of their product frond on mirroring and actual reprimanded you if you used mirror and said it should NEVER be used at all. Who is correct?

[dgschaefer]

There are different kinds of mirroring.  I personally never use feature mirrors because they limit how the parent feature can be redefined.  If you want to redimension the parent sketch to change the references, you must delete the child (mirror) feature before you are allowed.  I can understand why a company would want to prohibit this specific kind of mirroring.

Mirroring geometry, however, is a very powerful tool and I use it all of the time.  I'll either build the part in half, and then mirror the part by selecting the part at the top of the tree and then selecting the mirror command.  This is very robust and flexible.  I also will mirror datum features and quilts.  If I need to mirror a subset of geometry, I'd prefer to copy those surfaces, mirror them and then solidify the mirror.  This gets around the limitations listed above.  Saving parts as a mirrored version, geometry dependant, is also very robust.

Until PTC removes the limitation with feature mirroring (or any kind of dependant copying), I'd recommend limiting its use.