Unlock new skills for symmetric drawing using CAD software!

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In mechanical and architectural drawing, many figures exhibit symmetry. In architecture, symmetry is also a form of beauty; it symbolizes stability and fairness, and it also indicates certain attributes of a building such as its rank or purpose. In product components, symmetric design also offers greater aesthetic pleasure. Designers who are proficient in CAD are well aware that there is a “mirror” command in CAD drawing software. No matter how complex the drawing, we can perform symmetrical replication from any angle, but the symmetrically generated shapes often require many subsequent modifications. As designs become increasingly complex, simple symmetry can no longer meet all our needs for drawing symmetrical shapes. Let’s take a look at such an example. At first glance, plans B and B’ seem similar in most aspects, differing only in their symmetry; but upon closer inspection, there are differences in the kitchen and dining area, the two elevators, as well as the bathroom in the master bedroom. In this case, we cannot use the mirror command to handle everything in one go; even if that command is used, there will still be many aspects that need to be modified later on. To address this issue, the Haochen CAD drawing software includes a “symmetric line drawing” command. Click the “Enable Symmetric Drawing” button at the bottom of the software interface to activate symmetric drawing, and then click “Pick Symmetry Axis” to the right of this command in order to select any straight line as the symmetry axis; thereafter, you can use this axis for drawing symmetric shapes. With this command, when the shapes on both sides of the axis are identical, turn on the \"Enable Symmetric Drawing\" option; whereas when the shapes on both sides are different, turn off this option. Use it flexibly according to the actual situation. This way, it **reduces the unnecessary effort spent on creating symmetric drawings, as well as the amount of work required for subsequent modifications and adjustments. Such a setting is very useful during the scheme design phase. Furthermore, according to actual circumstances, HaoChen CAD has thoughtfully included support objects in the settings for drawing symmetric lines. By allowing users to choose different support objects, it becomes possible to treat various elements more differently in symmetric drawings, thereby enabling precise control over the similarities and differences on both sides of the axis of symmetry. For designers with extensive drawing experience, blocks and external references are important tools for managing graphics, as many graphics are compiled into blocks, references, etc. However, once the blocks and references are mirrored, the text direction inside them will be incorrect. In such cases, users often have to explode the block or bind a new reference, or recreate the block and bind a new reference again, which is quite troublesome. It seems like a small issue, but it remains unresolved for a long time, resulting in a significant amount of work required for modifications. Thus, in HaoChen CAD Architecture and HaoChen Cloud Architecture, this issue has been resolved – the text within blocks and references remains displayed in the correct orientation even after mirroring. That’s all for this sharing session. These two simple features allow for greater flexibility when using CAD software for drawing, enabling users to focus more on the design itself rather than just acting as mere drafters.