reflect along a line

[john77m]

Is there an easy way to reflect an object along a line?

Thanks.

 

[A_B_C]

Hi there,

 

that is a pretty good question, and I doubt there is a direct way which relies on snapping objects to objects only. But for an approximate way to do it (which might eventually become an exact way, as soon as snapping is improved), you might try this recipe:

• Suppose you want to reflect a triangle across a line (1).
• Then duplicate the line and rotate it by 90 degrees. Hold Shift to constrain the rotation values (2).
• Select all, but make sure that the bounding box created by the lines alone encloses all other objects. This will make the intersection point of the lines the center of all further transformations. Now duplicate all your objects and flip the whole duplicated object group (3).
• Finally, with the mirrored duplicate still selected, rotate the object group around the center, until the lines coincide and the duplicate triangle will be the image of the original one under reflection. This is the approximate part, but if you calculate angles beforehand, you can achieve a fairly exact result here as well (4).
• Done (5, 6).

I really wonder if there is another method …  :unsure:

Alex

[john77m]

Thanks, Alex,

 

This is very helpful! (The drawings made it easy to follow.)