Thanks, Mogal!

Sorry I don't have an answer for you about your problem. I can replicate it, and it reminds me of a few days ago when I experienced the same thing.

However, what I'm thanking you about is your posting for some reason is the only reason I found (serendipitously) an actual use of "Duplicate as an instance". Previously, I'd not recalled from the manual nor noticed any advantage in using an "instance".

I was right-clicking the cube I made to follow your scenario, but in searching for contextual options that might have led to me finding an answer for you, I figured I'd scale the cube and see what would happen. The dragged-off instance resized according to the parent cube. The instance acts like a linked child. So, moving the parent cube in x, y, z directions also affects the instance cube.

Interestingly, when I started playing around, I found a weakness in either the ACIS logic or some other logic: Using "Constant Chamfer", I chamfored the edges of one side of the parent cube. Nice, so far: The instance mimics the parent. But, when I chamfored the instance, the parent did not (as I expected) mimic the instance. Then, when I chamfored the parent without undoing the chamfer to the instance, the parent chamforing threw an exception/fit:

Features X
"Unable to rebuild feature from clues: Chamfer (Constant)_80796942 (part_80794411 Layer=Layer1)"


( Sounds like Spock-Speak to me. )
Attempting to repeat a chamfer to the parent results in the same error message.

Undoing ALSO causes the same error message until the offending instance-chamfer is undone.

Interestingly, a Deep Select pull on a face of the parent does not instantly move the instances corresponding face. BUT, scaling the parent then corrects the instances face to match. Actually, scaling may not be wanted, but udoing the scaling restores both parts to the original physical sizes AND makes the instance copy mimic the parent's new shape.

It's too bad that a near-god human has not written a fully-fledged manual in a different perspective. Despite having some explosive moments with Shark LT, I am continually surprised more by what I CAN do than what I CAN NOT do.

Hi,

I just realized that the vanishing x, y, z fields are the initial positioning fields. Maybe Tim has them disappear since after deselection of a part, it's assumed the part will be repositioned by other means.

But, yeh, it is apparently inconsistent with the fact that a cylinder deselected and reselected redisplays the option to reposition the cylinder if the x, y, or z values are modified.