This is no different than what we had for the past few releases with the ability to Mirror a Curve using either 'Instance Geometry' or 'Mirror Curve'. It's just that in NX 9.0 we replaced 'Instance Geometry', and a few other 'Instancing' routines, with the more modern and much more capable 'Pattern' type functions such as 'Pattern Geometry'. And since the idea of performing a 'Mirror' operation doesn't actually fit into the concept of 'Patterning' we created a new 'Mirror Geometry' function to replace all of the 'Mirror' options which were part of those now obsolete 'Instance' functions. And along the way we decided, where possible, to include some of the explicit 'Mirror' functions such as 'Mirror Curve'. Now, except for those 'Mirror' functions lost when we replaced the 'Instance' functions, the others that are now covered by the new 'Mirror Geometry' function, such as 'Mirror Curve', were not removed, at least not right now. And while we may never completely remove them, they may be taken-off the out-of-the-box Ribbons/Menus and delegated to a 'hidden' status and perhaps even someday downgraded to the status of having to use Customize to resurrect them, but for now, the results are virtually the same. It's just that we feel it's better to provide a few flexible and very capable functions like this, such as the 'Mirror' and 'Pattern' functions which cover a broader set of object types, then to have multiple explicit although somewhat similar functions for each object type. This should make learning and using NX easier once you become familiar with these new and more powerful 'replication' functions.
So the bottom line is, there is nothing to be gained or lost for a legacy user of NX to continue to use what explicit 'Mirror' functions that are still supported, just that they should look at moving to the new functions, and of course, new users of NX shouldn't even be shown those older explicit functions since there is absolutely NOTHING to be gained by them having to learn multiple schemes to accomplish the same thing. Besides, once they do learn what the 'Mirror Geometry' function is capable of doing, why would they ever need what could then be considered as redundant functionality.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
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