Linked Mirrored Body

[tomcatcool17]

I was handed a part file today that has been created as a linked mirrored body. Well, the file now needs to be split from the linked body, but would like to retain the parameters used in the linked body. It will still be a mirrored version of the linked body, but no link anymore. Is this possible without redoing the entire model?

 

[jerry1423]

What version of NX are you on?

I really don't think it is possible to break the link and have the mirrored body "inherit" the parameters from the initial body.

 

[JohnRBaker]

There is no practical way to mirror a body and keep the same features since the directional sense of objects would be counterintuitive to a normal feature.

As an example of what I mean, take something as simple as a 'Block' feature, which has 3 directional parameters, Length, Width and Height. Now if we were to mirror a Block and try to maintain the feature and its parameters, what would you expect? Negative values where before they were positive, or positive values, just pointing in the opposite direction? And the same is true for angular values, are negative values acceptable or do we have to somehow switch from a 'right-hand' to a 'left-hand' coordinate system?

You see the potential problem, right?

I hope you'll understand why there was never any attempt to sort of 'turn a part inside-out' while keeping it's features and parameters intact when performing a 'Mirror Body' operation.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[tomcatcool17]

Ok, starting from scratch I go. I didn't think there was anything that would help, but I wanted to put it out there in case I was missing something. Thanks guys.

 

[SDETERS]

What about Copying the non mirrored part then make the changes then mirror the part at the end of the history. this keeps your part history and you can go add the features you need any point in the tree. You just have a reflect on the end of your history tree.?

 

[tomcatcool17]

I am trying to have the mirror happen at the beginning so when someone else works on it that doesn't know the history will understand what's going on. That is why I'm not going to export the part and mirror it at the end.

 

[SDETERS]

That makes sense. I did not konw if you needed something quick and or something that is robust and the correct way of doing things.

 

[JohnRBaker]

What about Copying the non mirrored part then make the changes then mirror the part at the end of the history. this keeps your part history and you can go add the features you need any point in the tree. You just have a reflect on the end of your history tree?

Another situation where this works well is adding a 'Scale' Feature at the end of the Feature tree.

I was once asked to model a regulation Soccer Ball but the initial information I got as the the diameter of a Soccer Ball proved to be incorrect but instead of trying to fix the model from the start, I just added a Scale Feature at the end as well an Expression which was related to the Scale Feature in such a way that all I had to do was enter the desired Diameter as the value for the Expression and with a single update, I could get any size Soccer Ball I wished since the proportions and relationships of various 'segments' which make up the outer surface are not dependent on the final size.

With this mind, I did the same thing a couple of years later when someone asked for a model of a Brilliant-Cut Diamond Solitaire. Again I didn't need to be all that concerned about the physical size of the model since the ratios and proportions of the facets of a diamond are again independent of the actual size of the stone.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.