Oxford says:
give actual or physical form to.
“the stage designs have been beautifully realized”
Though it is technically valid (by the third uncommonly used definition), my personal opinion is that “make instances real” sounds better. One particular reason is that it is already used as the name of a blender operator that does the exact same effect. Why change the name if people are already used to it?
I’m not too worried about it though. Naming can be difficult and give annoying results, but I’d rather have other annoyances like the dashy lines fixed.