Mirror Component in Assembly

By Xiaodong Liang

Question:
API allows me to create mirror feature in a part, but it looks not way to create mirror component in an assembly. Is there any method?

Solution:
This is no direct API function available for this task, but if you observe the built-in behavior of Inventor, you can find the mirror component is actually a derived part from the parent part. So you could create a new file (the derived component) from the parent part, insert the derived component by mirroring about the selected plane.

The challenge is the mirror matrix. There are abundant articles about mirroring(also called reflect transform) on internet. Here is one article I referred to

http://ami.ektf.hu/uploads/papers/finalpdf/AMI_40_from175to186.pdf

and, it indicates the mirror matrix is:

Where, C_x, C_y C_z are the normallized values of the workplane’s normal.

But, it does not consider the translation of the object off the plane. We could just multiply the transformation of the parent component. The following is a small code demo. It assumes a work plane is selected. It mirrors the first component.

Sub MirrorPartInAss()

    Dim oAssDoc As AssemblyDocument
    Set oAssDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
   
    'mirror plane
    Dim oMirrorWP As WorkPlane
    Set oMirrorWP = oAssDoc.SelectSet(1)
   
    Dim oPlane As Plane
    Set oPlane = oMirrorWP.Plane
   
    'get normal of the plane
    Dim oNormalX As Double
    oNormalX = oPlane.Normal.X
   
    Dim oNormalY As Double
    oNormalY = oPlane.Normal.Y
   
    Dim oNormalZ As Double
    oNormalZ = oPlane.Normal.Z
   
    'create the mirroring matrix
    Dim oMirrorMatrix As Matrix
    Set oMirrorMatrix = ThisApplication.TransientGeometry.CreateMatrix()
    Dim oMatrixData(15) As Double
    oMatrixData(0) = 1 - 2 * oNormalX * oNormalX
    oMatrixData(1) = -2 * oNormalX * oNormalY
    oMatrixData(2) = -2 * oNormalX * oNormalZ
    oMatrixData(3) = 0

    oMatrixData(4) = -2 * oNormalX * oNormalY
    oMatrixData(5) = 1 - 2 * oNormalY * oNormalY
    oMatrixData(6) = -2 * oNormalZ * oNormalY
    oMatrixData(7) = 0

    oMatrixData(8) = -2 * oNormalX * oNormalZ
    oMatrixData(9) = -2 * oNormalZ * oNormalY
    oMatrixData(10) = 1 - 2 * oNormalZ * oNormalZ
    oMatrixData(11) = 0

    oMatrixData(12) = 0
    oMatrixData(13) = 0
    oMatrixData(14) = 0
    oMatrixData(15) = 1
   
    Call oMirrorMatrix.PutMatrixData(oMatrixData)
   
    'get the first component
    Dim oOcc As ComponentOccurrence
    Set oOcc = oAssDoc.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences(1)
   
    'multiply with the transformation of the parent component
     oMirrorMatrix.PostMultiplyBy oOcc.Transformation
   
    Dim oParentPartPath As String
    oParentPartPath = oOcc.Definition.Document.FullFileName
   
     ' Create a new part file to derive the  part in.
    Dim oPartDoc As PartDocument
    Set oPartDoc = ThisApplication.Documents.Add(kPartDocumentObject, _
                 ThisApplication.FileManager.GetTemplateFile(kPartDocumentObject))

     ' Create a derived definition for the  part.
    Dim oDerivedPartDef As DerivedPartTransformDef
    Set oDerivedPartDef = oPartDoc.ComponentDefinition.ReferenceComponents.DerivedPartComponents.CreateTransformDef(oParentPartPath)
    
    ' Create the derived part.
    Call oPartDoc.ComponentDefinition.ReferenceComponents.DerivedPartComponents.Add(oDerivedPartDef)    
    'save the derived part.
    Call oPartDoc.SaveAs("c:\temp\mirrorPart.ipt", False)   
   'add the derived part as a component
    Call oAssDoc.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences.Add(oPartDoc.FullFileName, oMirrorMatrix)    
     oPartDoc.Close     
    'activate the assembly document
    oAssDoc.Activate
End Sub