CAD Mirror Command

The Mirror (MI) command is used to create mirror copies of selected objects and remains one of the least used commands for years.

Command Access:

* If you are in the 2D Drafting workspace:

Ribbon: Home > Modify > Mirror, as shown in the following picture,

* If you are in the GstarCAD Classic workspace:

Menu: Modify > Mirror, as shown in the following picture,

* Command: MIRROR, as shown in the following picture,

Then press Enter key to select the object; After selecting the object and press Enter key, you are prompted to specify first point of mirror line, then second point of mirror line.

After specifying the two points, you have the following option,

Mirror command itself is not complicated, but there are quite a few questions about Mirror command such as why mirroring text has the same effect as copying text, how does mirrored text happen, why the hatch pattern direction is retained not mirrored even if we have set the system variable MIRRTEXT.

By default, when you mirror a text object, the direction of the text is not changed, this is also applies to the hatch object, dimension object and other annotative objects, as shown in the following picture,

Obviously, the CAD Mirror command deals with annotative objects such as text in a way that would favor most of the users.

The mirrored effect of text and hatch is controlled by system variable instead of the Mirror command, so if you find the direction of the text or hatch is actually mirrored not retained, or retained not mirrored as you want, you could check or make changes to the variable setups.

How to control the system variable for mirroring text: MIRRTEXT

By default, the value for this variable is 0 and the text becomes readable after executing the mirror command.

When this variable is set to 1, the text becomes unreadable after executing the mirror command, as shown in the following picture,

Please note that if the above object is block object, even if the variable value is 0, the text, dimension text, etc will be mirrored and won’t be readable.

How to control the system variable for mirroring hatch: MIRRHATCH

By default, the value for MIRRHATCH is 0 and the hatch has the same direction as before executing the Mirror command.

When the value for MIRRHATCH is set to 1, the hatch will be reversed, as shown in the following picture,

But what if we want the hatch to have the same direction as before the Mirror command? Just double-click hatch and the Hatch Edit window would pop up, as shown in the following picture,

Click OK to close this window, and you can see that the mirrored hatch has the same direction as before, as shown in the following picture,

A small tip for the Mirror command in GstarCAD

We don’t have to always specify two points after selecting an object, we can actually just press Enter key after selecting an object, and you are prompted to select mirror line, as shown in the following picture,

What do you think of Mirror Command? You can comment or leave a message, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.