LDD: Mirror a model?

geordiefatbloke

Hi, Apologies if this is not the right place to ask this, your patience is appreciated. I'm using the Lego digital designer which I'm inexperienced with, I've created one corner of a large model, the style of which is repeated for the other corners. I can copy and rotate it fine for the opposite corner, it would be really helpful if I could mirror the model for the remaining corners ... is this possible?

Thanks in advance
Paul

StuBoy

I could be wrong, but I don't think you can. I think the only tools are the ones at the top middle of the screen, and there's no mirroring tool. There is an 'invert selection' tool, but not really sure what that does.

akunthita

Gosh, that would be so helpful! I don't think it is possible with the current version of LDD though. At least I haven't seen a feature like that.

graphite

I don't believe it is either. The only tools are for manipulating the parts you have down. Mirroring in some cases would require a different part being replaced in the selection and LDD isn't that advanced.

FYI "invert selection" is for selecting everything you dont currently have selected. So if you have 100 pieces down and you want to move all of them but 1 or 2 you can select the 1 or 2 and chose "invert selection" and it will select the other 98 for you. It is equivalent to selecting all and deselecting the few you don't want.

paul_merton

Mirroring could result in parts that simply do not exist, which is probably why it doesn't have that feature.

rocao

^ Would it? I'm not able to think of an element or sub-assembly that would restrict what the OP is trying to do.

Markey

Items with writing would go mirrored for example.

In most 3D programs, you would Scale -1, but LDD doesn't have this feature.

graphite

^^ anything with a "wedge" brick or plate couldn't be mirrored without having to swap the "left" to "right" wedge piece.

rocao

^ right... sorry, I was referencing what paul_merton said about them not existing.

geordiefatbloke

Many thanks for all your comments. I ended up doing the mirroring "by hand" as it were, time-consuming but at least now I know that's the way I have to do it ;)

luckyruss

How about this one, I wasn't aware there was a reverse of this door type?

www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3861

paul_merton

rocao said:

^ Would it? I'm not able to think of an element or sub-assembly that would restrict what the OP is trying to do.

Yeah, certain doors and door frames were the obvious examples I had in mind when I wrote that. Like the above example, when it's mirrored it will result in a part that does not exist.

Other than a couple of stairs from older sets, I'm struggling to think of any others! There must surely be more, though - anything which lacks symmetry (including rotational symmetry) would be a candidate.

paul_merton

Part 4716 (Technic, Gear Worm Screw) is another example. A mirrored version does not exist (which is probably a good thing as it would be difficult to tell them apart when you're following the building instructions, and picking the wrong one would result in the cogs turning in the opposite direction to that intended!)

kresty

I also would like to mirror a model.  In my case there's no writing, it's just bricks.  Even if there was writing, gears, whatever, it could just use the brick in the other position, we don't need to actually mirror the individual bricks, just the model :) 

It could warn in case whatever couldn't be solved my moving regular bricks to mirrored positions.  Not a terribly difficult problem for a computer.

Trickier would be to interlock the mirrored bits, assuming that was needed (like for a stronger build).

Do ldraw or other tools do mirroring? 

kresty

Ok, I got fed up with it and wrote a little script.  After all, all I wanted to do was flip the x, y, or z positions of bricks.  Maybe there's a better way, but here's my post:  http://ourrandombits.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-do-i-mirror-ldd-ldraw-file.html

Thought about putting it on some source place so other people could add "replace left & right wings" if they wanted to, but this is good enough for what I needed.