Help with live mirroring an object: Perfect alignment issue

[IllustratorEnthusiast]

Hi,

I can't seem to find the answer to this problem I've been having with alignment; when I use the repeat/mirror function, I'm not able to align or snap the dashed mirroring line to anything. I've tried a few workarounds, so far it seems that I can only freely move the line. Am I doing something wrong or missing a step? Is there a better way to accomplish this?

Below I've provided some reference as to what I'm trying. I've been adding a line in the center in hopes that the dashed line snaps to it; no luck so far.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

It would probably make more sense to just use the old Object --> Transform --> Reflect and/ or group whatever objects you want to mirror with a huge rectangle matching one half of the coverage of the artwork and scaling by -100 %. The live mirroring really wants object boundaries to work with and is hard to get aligned without any such stuff present or items being locked in the background.

Mylenium

[Jacob Bugge]

JD,

I agree with Mylenium.

Depending on the artwork, it can be convenient to create a symmetrical drawing live with the help of Illy, with the inbuilt tools, without any external plugins, if you just start in the right way.

In many cases it is much better to see the whole appearance while you create it.

Depending on the number of reflexion/rotation axes, there are different ways.

For a simple one to two mirroring, you may see the reflection live after each Anchor Point if you start out as follows (for Pen Tool with vertical reflection to the right, similar for other directions):

1) Create the first two Anchor Points of your basic path;
2) Effect>Distort&Transform>Transform>ReflectX with 1 copy and the middle right side Reference Point chosen;
3) With the Pen Tool ClickDrag (or Click) anew from the second Anchor Point and go on;

If you wish, you may:

4) Object>Expand Appearance and Ctrl/Cmd+J to join the half paths.

Ctrl/Cmd+Z Undo is your friend: you can just go back and redo while drawing the basic path.

But you can have a look at the MadPattern templates,
http://madpattern.com/

Or you can have a look at the MirrorMe plugin from Astute Graphics,
http://www.astutegraphics.com/software/mirrorme/