5.3. Discovery Capability Levels and Licensing Requirements

Discovery's capability levels and their licensing requirements are described below.

Also see Structural Physics Licensing, Fluids Physics Licensing, and Electromagnetic Physics Licensing.

Table 5.2: Discovery Capability Levels and Licensing Requirements

Capability Levels and Licensing RequirementsDescription
Discovery Enterprise

  • Provides access to all geometry modeling and simulation capabilities, including advanced capabilities such as fluid-solid heat transfer, radiation, and electromagnetics physics.

  • Requires disco_level1 + disco_level2 + disco_level3 licensing increments.

  • Permits all modeling operations.

  • Permits structural, fluids, and electromagnetics solves in the Explore stage and electromagnetics and fluids solves in the Refine stage.

    • For structural, provides access to solving in the Refine stage but an appropriate flagship solver license is also required.

    • For fluids solves in the Refine stage, you can use the LiveGX solver, which is the default and does not require an additional flagship license. If you disable the LiveGX solver, an appropriate flagship solver license is also required.

    • Electromagnetics solves do not require an additional flagship license except for electric and thermal-electric solves in the Refine stage, which require an additional Mechanical Enterprise license.

Discovery Premium

  • Builds on Discovery Pro by adding access to advanced modeling capabilities and additional structural and thermal physics, as well as fluids physics.

  • Requires disco_level1 + disco_level2 licensing increments.

  • Permits all modeling operations.

  • Permits structural and fluids solves in the Explore stage, and fluids solves in the Refine stage.

    • For structural, provides access to solving in the Refine stage but an appropriate flagship solver license is also required.

    • For fluids solves in the Refine stage, you can use the LiveGX solver, which is the default and does not require an additional flagship license. If you disable the LiveGX solver, an appropriate flagship solver license is also required.

    • No support for electromagnetics solves.

Discovery Pro

  • Provides access to most geometry modeling capabilities, plus support for entry level structural physics.

  • Requires the disco_level1 licensing increment.

  • Permits most modeling operations.

  • Blocks creation and editing of physics objects other than entry level structural physics.

  • Blocks solving other than entry level structural physics.

  • Permits read-only access to the Explore and Refine stages for all remaining physics.

  • Permits read-only access to results and post-processing for all remaining physics.

  • Enables you to run your choice of Discovery Modeling, SpaceClaim, or DesignModeler. However, you may run only one of these products at a time.


If a disco_level1 license is not available, one of these alternate licenses may be used instead.

  • CFD PrepPost: cfd_base + cfd_preppost + cfd_preppost_pro

  • Electronics: elec_solve_level1 + elec_solve_level2 + elec_solve_level3

  • Mechanical Enterprise PrepPost: preppost

  • Mechanical Enterprise: ansys

See Setting the Primary and Alternate Licenses for Discovery for details.