- There are several different mirror commands
inside of SolidWorks.
In this movie, we're going to be covering
the sketch mirror tool.
Now we also have a feature mirror tool
as well as a body mirror tool.
And you can mirror things in any one of these methods.
So, if you're trying to create an extruded body,
for instance, I could mirror over this triangle here
and extrude it out and I have two individual bodies,
but I could also do that as a solid.
So I'd generally recommend trying to
keep your sketches very simple,
and then doing any of those mirror commands, actually,
as individual mirror features,
when you actually have a solid,
but you can do it either way.
And so right now let's focus on
doing it in or mirroring it inside of a sketch.
So, the first thing I need to do is turn on the tool.
So here's mirror entities right up here at the top.
The first question is, what are my entities to mirror?
I'm going to go ahead
and window around this little triangle here.
And you have the option of copying it
or just mirroring it over and replacing the other value.
And then I can choose what I want to mirror about.
So I'm going to choose this line right here
and then click on okay, and just that easily,
I've created a mirrored copy of my original part.
Now this is not just a static sketch sitting there, right?
This is actually a dynamic mirror.
So if I grab this part here and I move it around
notice the two parts automatically match each other.
They're continuously being mirrored
from one side to the other.
If I modify this one, if delete something
it won't delete the other side, but it's a mirror, right?
So just keep that in mind.
Now I can also mirror multiple items, right?
So entities to mirror
I'm going to go ahead and window around everything there,
mirror that about, and something like this line right here
and it's going to bring everything down to the bottom.
Now, if you modify or move one of these things
then they're all automatically going to move,
which is pretty cool.
If I move the line itself
notice that's also changing the way the mirror works.
So a couple different powerful things you can do there
with the mirror command.
Now we've mirrored a couple of these things over here
and we can continue going with this tool.
So here's the mirror command one more time.
I can select everything here.
One shot instead of copying it
I can actually just grab a mirror about
click over here and I can then mirror it over here.
And what that will do is it'll get rid
of the original ones and it's going to just mirror it
over that line to the other side.
So bunch different ways this tool can be used.
Again, though, I would recommend trying to
not do too many mirror commands inside of your sketch
cuz it does make it overly complicated.
It's better to create one simple item first,
and then when you're actually in a 3d model,
then use the mirror command to create multiples
or even pattern it.
So a couple of ways you can do it,
but this is the mirror command
for the sketch mode inside of SolidWorks.