I’ve been struggling lately trying to come up with some juicy tidbit to write about. Then I had an epiphany of sorts: "There are plenty of new SolidWorks users out there who may read my blog, why not write something for them?" Without further ado, I present "Dynamic Mirror".
We all know about mirroring sketchs, right? Create one half, select the mirror icon and something to mirror about (usually a construction line) and you have your whole sketch. Dynamic mirror is the same, but the mirroring happens real time. For whatever reason, though, the icon doesn’t show up in your default sketch choices. You’ll need to go to ‘customize->commands->sketch’ and grab the mirror icon with the lightning bolt through it. I like to put it in my shortcut toolbar.
Once you’ve done that, simply start a sketch. Create a construction line to mirror about then select the Dynamic Mirror icon. You’ll notice a couple of what appear to be equal signs at either end of the construction line. You’re ready to begin sketching. Deselecting the Dynamic Mirror icon will turn off the feature, but the sketch will retain it’s mirror capabilities (i.e. move one line, the mirrored line will follow).
That’s today’s quick lesson. As always, feel free to email me your comments or questions.
