- [Instructor] Using the SolidWorks Mirror command
can save you a considerable amount of time,
especially when your part has some symmetry.
Let's take a look at this example right here.
Right here, I'm looking at the top of the part
and notice that if you were to cut this
right down the center,
that the right side and the left side look identical,
and same thing.
If you were to cut it right
through the middle of this direction
you would see the top and the bottom look identical as well.
So why draw all four quadrants?
Let's just draw one of those quadrants
and then let's mirror that over.
Now, of course we could mirror individual sketches
but as a general rule
it's a better idea to make simple sketches
and then mirror the part as a body, not as a sketch.
So let's take a look at this original design.
So inside of here, sketch one
let's edit that sketch and you can see here.
We've got a pretty good design, not too bad
but instead of having all this extra information
let's go ahead and just grab our trim tool and just get rid
of all this stuff over here that we just simply don't need.
Right?
So I'm going to trim all this away.
And all I'm left with is a couple lines over here.
Trim these away is over here.
All right.
So now get rid of that guy there.
I've got a few lines here, so let's actually
let's just get rid of it all delete.
All right.
Now we're starting with a nice, fresh nothing,
and let's grab that corner rectangle tool.
Come up here,
drag out a corner rectangle.
Okay.
We're going to put that circle right over here in the corner.
I can add a couple of center lines
from the circle center here to the edges
and I want to keep those equal.
So I'm going to go ahead
and add that relationship by holding on control,
selecting them both and say make equal.
Now let's go ahead and add a few dimensions.
So I'm going to dimension
from this side over to this side over here.
I think that was five inches.
And then over here from this side
of this side is going to be, I think, three inches
but it doesn't really matter what the dimensions are.
We can easily change those same thing over here.
I'm going to say this is going to be one inch
and the spacing is going to be one inch.
Okay, so now you've got that up in the corner.
So that's basically one quarter
of a similar style part than we just had.
So let's go ahead and turn that into an extrude
but we already actually have it in an extrude.
So we just modify the existing sketch.
So as soon as I get out of this sketch, guess what happens?
It comes back and we have one quarter of our part.
Now let's go ahead
and use the mirror command to mirror over this body.
Now, when you jump into the mirror command
we've got a few different options here.
So it's automatically asking us for the mirror plane
so I could choose a face like one of these
or I could use the twirl down here
and choose one of the fundamental planes as well.
Either way will work.
I'm going to go ahead and choose this face right over here.
Now, by default, it puts the highlight box here
in the features to mirror,
and that's an individual,
like a hole or an extrude,
but instead of doing a feature mirror,
we prefer to do a body mirror
and body mirror is actually down here.
It's hidden a little bit
and it's easy to make a mistake here
by choosing a feature mirror versus a body mirror.
I want to take everything that made that body up
which happens to be only one feature at this point in time.
But you could have thousands
of features that go ahead and create one body.
And then when you use that body mirror command
everything that's available there,
everything that's going in to make that body
automatically gets mirrored over.
So definitely use the body mirror.
All right.
So I'm going to choose the body here,
click okay.
And I've easily mirrored that over.
Same thing over here if I do it one more time,
mirror, choose my mirror face,
which is that one there.
And then not a feature mirror, close that up
go down here to body mirrors and choose that entire body.
Right?
So now just that easily
I'm back to the point where I started from
but you're thinking,
"Hey, well it looks exactly like what we had before,"
which is true,
but look how much simpler my original sketch was.
Right?
I'm only have this simple rectangle
with a hole in it way easier.
Right?
And then if I want to make a modification here, right?
If I want to add like a rectangle over here
or something like that into the design
when I exit out guess what that automatically propagates
through to those four quadrants
because I'm modifying that original sketch.
So that's where the power comes from
using the mirror command.
And just thinking if there's any kind of symmetry
in your part,
definitely start using a mirror command
'cause any modification will automatically propagate
through to the other side.
If you want to continue on
I can continue adding mirror operations.
So here's a mirror, my mirror face.
If I want to click on this face over here, body to mirror
let's do the whole thing.
Sure, we can mirror that entire thing over now.
But I also want to give you an example
of just a feature mirror, right?
So if I have a plane, which is over here
actually want to plane this right in the middle of this.
So let's go ahead and use a reference geometry plane.
I'm going to choose this face right here.
And this one over here,
that's going to put a plane right in the, between the two.
All right.
Now let's go over here,
click on this top face here, and let's create a circle.
So start a sketch.
And we're going to put a sketch of a circle right over here.
And I want that circle over there.
I want to mirror that over.
So first let's go ahead and create the extrude cut
and I'm going to type in 0.5,
right?
So there is my extrude cut right there
and let's take this circle
or this little circular cut here and put on the other side
I don't want to mirror the entire body.
I just want to take the feature itself.
So click on mirror right over here.
I'm going to choose the face or plane to mirror it over
which I'm going to use that new plane
and notice it's automatically selected here
because the last thing I did under features to mirror
and it's going to bring it right over here
and only mirror that one feature.
So you can use that mirror command for both entire bodies.
You can use it for individual features or multiple features
at the same time,
and you can even use it for faces.
So bunch different ways that tool can be used.
And I definitely recommend trying to use it
'cause it will save you a lot of time.
And it also makes sure
that you don't have any errors in your part
because one side will always look like the other side.