A set of bodies may be considered body instances if they can be considered duplicates with the only difference being their locations and orientations. Location and orientation changes may be referred to as transformations.

By extension, parts consisting of one or more bodies may be considered part instances if each part instance contains the same number of bodies and if all bodies in each part are instances of corresponding bodies in the other part instances. Thus, a set of part instances only differ in their locations and orientations. Part instances may sometimes be referred to as assemblies.

While assembly/instance data has been supported in the Mechanical and Meshing applications for previous releases, its support in the DesignModeler application began with R13. If geometry is attached into either the Mechanical application or the DesignModeler application, instance data will be transferred if the Import Using Instances property of the Geometry cell in the Project Schematic view is set. Transfer of instance data from the DesignModeler application to the Mechanical application will depend on additional considerations discussed in Ansys DesignModeler Instancing.

Instance data transfer into Ansys Workbench is presently supported for IGES, STEP, Parasolid, Creo Parametric, NX, and Solid Edge. IGES, STEP, and Parasolid instance data transfer is only supported for import directly into the Mechanical application.