Add or remove symmetry

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Add or remove symmetry.

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In this video, we’ll add and remove symmetry.

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In Fusion 360, we want to carry on with our box primitive.

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We want to start understanding how we can add and remove symmetry from a design.

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We're going to do a quick test, select this face and select modify edit form.

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We're going to begin pulling the face up, moving it around, scaling it and rotating it and seeing how the form changes.

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Let's hit Cancel and control Z or command Z to undo or use the undo options in the upper section of Fusion 360.

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Next we're going to go into symmetry and take a look at all of our options.

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We have mirror internal, circular internal, mirror duplicate, circular duplicate, clear symmetry and isolate symmetry.

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For our example, since we're dealing with a single body, we're going to use mirror internal.

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When we do this, we need to select faces across a mirror plane.

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As soon as we select those faces, note that it's giving us a green line.

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We say OK, we select this face and now go to edit form.

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As we begin pulling this up note that it's moving both sides.

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Each side is moving equally.

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And because of that symmetry, we only have to select one side and make those adjustments.

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Now that we've modified this design, let’s go ahead and go into symmetry and select mirror internal.

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You can see if we select across another plane of reference that it's modifying the geometry to make sure that it can maintain that symmetry.

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There are of course limitations to this.

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If the geometry is too different or the number of faces doesn't match, oftentimes it'll fail to create that symmetry.

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But now, if we select just a single vertex, for example, and use edit form.

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Now we're going to be moving this single vertex and it's going to affect change in all four corners.

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So once again, it's handy to understand how to create the symmetry,

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especially if the model that you're working with has symmetry across a single or multiple planes.

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But what happens if you want to undo or remove symmetry?

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Sometimes your designs will be mostly symmetric, but there'll be cases where you want to remove that symmetry to make some unique adjustments.

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Under the symmetry section, ee have clear symmetry and isolate symmetry.

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When we select isolate symmetry, we can select individual faces,

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and note that it's giving us warnings because the selected operations have symmetry across multiple planes.

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If we say OK and then we try to use modify edit form, notice that it's not respecting the symmetry anymore.

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It's allowing us to make those adjustments to that single face.

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The symmetry is still listed there.

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However, we're now saying that we don't want to respect it.

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If I go back and I can isolate the symmetry, notice that it's not allowing us to bring that symmetry back.

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It's already broken that reference.

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We also have the option to clear symmetry altogether.

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So, if we select the entire body and we select clear symmetry, now we've removed all planes of symmetry from the model.

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These can always be added back at any time.

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For example, if I determine that I want these two to be symmetric again,

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it will bring them back into symmetry simply by selecting them across that plane.

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That might not always be the case.

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So I do make sure that I caution everybody when beginning to use symmetry.

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Make sure that your designs are truly symmetric and note that you can create the symmetry after the fact.

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If you want to work on half of a model, you can do that by simply removing selected faces, making adjustments and then creating a mirror duplicate.

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If we use control or command to select all those faces and we had delete on the keyboard, note that it removed everything.

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But if we clear the symmetry first and then we select specific faces that we want to get rid of, it's simply going to turn this into a surface body.

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Now we could make adjustments, manipulate the geometry and then we can use mirror duplicate to create a copy of it,

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even if it's a long a line of symmetry.

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For right now, however, let's make sure that we undo and turn this back into a solid box.

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Go back to a home view and make sure that we save the design before moving on.