Mirror

imagineered

I'm probably missing something here, but is there a method of mirroring components in an assembly?
ie with the choice of just a mirrored placement and/or creating a mirrored component?

raj_Onshape

At this time we do not have mirroring of components in assembly. As a workaround you can mirror the parts in part studio and insert both the original and mirrored part into the assembly

imagineered

thanks @ptrajkumar - bit of extra work - it'll have to work for now :-)

raj_Onshape

At this time we do not have mirroring of components in assembly. As a workaround you can mirror the parts in part studio and insert both the original and mirrored part into the assembly

imagineered

thanks @ptrajkumar - bit of extra work - it'll have to work for now :-)

nav

Just want to illustrate how amazing is OS once you understand the Multipart feature. I must say is faster than in Solid Works based on a video I just found... 5 minutes to mirror in an assembly...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT-c_LZGYr8

Onshape 40 seconds..

andrew_troup

I agree @nav (you didn't post the link, btw, but I think I know the video you mean)

A lot of queries on this forum arise from a 'business as usual ' assumption about the purpose of Onshape assemblies.

The only "assembly mirror" facility which would make sense to me, if Onshape was being used as designed, would be a dynamic one, for positioning two elements so that they moved symmetrically about a specified plane. Say, for modelling a crowding mechanism, or a self-centering vice.

Onshape Assemblies are for adding motion, not for positioning static items 

> Rant Mode OFF

nav

Thanks @andrew_troup on edit it took 20 second more, I forgot to modify the mirrored part as they do in the SW video. We have to change indeed the way we think about how assemblies are performed in OS, is pretty unique and I don`t blame other guys here still doing each part on a separate studio and then assembling each part, its how most CAD packages work, I was lucky perhaps I don`t get to use our CAD package at the office at all, too corporate now...so for me it was easy to adopt OS workflow.

jakeramsley

@nav,

As part of getting the mirror plane, selecting a linear edge for mid-plane works as well.  It will make a plane that is normal to the edge that is in the middle of it.  That way you didn't need to rotate to the other side to select the other face.

nav

Thanks @jakeramsley didn't know that 5 seconds less 

3dcad

Nice. In Alibre I tend to create lh / rh configurations and just select which one to use in assembly.

But as @andrew_troup pointed out I would need assembly mirror for keeping mirrored position for these lh / rh parts. 

imagineered

This is probably a better description of what I was taking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZZNGAAzQzs
Copies & creates the mirrored components all in one hit. (not just mirrored placements)

nav

Hi @imagineered you can do this in OS parts studio if all your assembly was drawn there, when you mirror a part(s) you can choose to create new ones (copies), add /Subtract/Intersect. If you have a specific problem in your model regarding this feature and you don`t have any IP issues share your model with the community you`ll probably get a lot of good input and nice workarounds from the guys here.

florian_ford

I am a beginner with OS and I find a few features that would be very helpful, which the OS and the community dismisses.
For one I'd like to have the ability to group in Part Studios. But this is another discussion.

The mirroring in an Assembly I have just found that it would be useful in the next situation: I have created a bunch of parts that are basically just mirrors of a few "master" parts in the parts studio. I then realized that later on in the design I'll have to import the structure in an assembly anyway so I would have liked all parts to be mated so I can't accidentally move them the way they are not supposed to be moved.

So I imported all in an assembly and started mating the "master" structures. All nice and dandy. Now somehow I wish the mirrored structures would somehow just inherit the mating from the original ones. Instead, I have to mate again and again every mirror, which is time consuming and inefficient.

How would you do this from a design intent pov in an time-efficient manner? 

VexFX

It's 2017 now, can we finally have the ability to mirror an assembly?  The assembly I want to mirror is made of many parts, from different part studios, all with complex mating relationships and constraints setup.   I really hate that I have hours of work ahead of me to perform a simple task that should be accounted for by default.  All I want is to flip an assembly horizontally, something I've never had difficulty with in other CAD applications.  Very disappointed that this has gone _years_ without being addressed when it's something that should have been included day 1.

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi Chris,

Unfortunately I do not have a solution to mirroring your mating scheme, but I hope I can make the geometry creation aspect of your mirror easier.  To create mirrored geometry in an assembly you can do the following:

1. Right click on the origin of the assembly and click "Create Part Studio in context", then click the green check box. You will automatically be switched to this new Part Studio
2. Create a Plane in this new part studio that you would like to mirror across.
3. Use the mirror feature in the part studio to mirror all the parts you want across the mirror plane.
4. Click "Insert and go to assembly" at the top of the graphics area.
5. Select all the parts in the part list and press the green check box.

Hopefully this makes your life a little easier at least on the geometry creation front. If you would like to see the Assembly Mirror implemented please vote on an improvement request such as this one or similar:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/5763/mirror-feature-for-assembly-workflow

jannie_smal

Jake_Rosenfeld said:

Hi Chris,

Unfortunately I do not have a solution to mirroring your mating scheme, but I hope I can make the geometry creation aspect of your mirror easier.  To create mirrored geometry in an assembly you can do the following:

1. Right click on the origin of the assembly and click "Create Part Studio in context", then click the green check box. You will automatically be switched to this new Part Studio
2. Create a Plane in this new part studio that you would like to mirror across.
3. Use the mirror feature in the part studio to mirror all the parts you want across the mirror plane.
4. Click "Insert and go to assembly" at the top of the graphics area.
5. Select all the parts in the part list and press the green check box.

Hopefully this makes your life a little easier at least on the geometry creation front. If you would like to see the Assembly Mirror implemented please vote on an improvement request such as this one or similar:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/5763/mirror-feature-for-assembly-workflow

jannie_smal

Jake_Rosenfeld said:

Hi Chris,

Unfortunately I do not have a solution to mirroring your mating scheme, but I hope I can make the geometry creation aspect of your mirror easier.  To create mirrored geometry in an assembly you can do the following:

1. Right click on the origin of the assembly and click "Create Part Studio in context", then click the green check box. You will automatically be switched to this new Part Studio
2. Create a Plane in this new part studio that you would like to mirror across.
3. Use the mirror feature in the part studio to mirror all the parts you want across the mirror plane.
4. Click "Insert and go to assembly" at the top of the graphics area.
5. Select all the parts in the part list and press the green check box.

Hopefully this makes your life a little easier at least on the geometry creation front. If you would like to see the Assembly Mirror implemented please vote on an improvement request such as this one or similar:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/5763/mirror-feature-for-assembly-workflow

Yes, this makes life much easier.

In the assembly, you then just Group the "new" parts with 1 of the other parts and it is fixed.

Thank you