Parametric surface meshing using a combined advancing-front generalized Delaunay approach

International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, John Wiley, Vol 49, Num 1, pp.233-259, September 10-20 2000

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Special Edition on Unstructured Mesh Generation
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Vol 49 Number 1-2, 10-20 September 2000

Correspondence to: Houman Borouchaki, UTT, GSM-LASMIS, Universite de Technologie de Troyes, BP 2060, 10010 Troyes Cedex, France
E-mail: houman.borouchaki@univ-troyes.fr
E-mail: patrick.laug@inria.fr

Abstract
Surface meshing is of the utmost importance in many numerical fields which include the finite element method. It is a necessary step when one wants to construct the mesh of a solid domain in three dimensions. A wide range of surfaces can be defined by means of composite parametric surfaces. Most of the surfaces are approximated by polynomial or rational parametric patches as is the case for most CAD-CAM modelers. In this paper, we make some remarks about a method suitable for generating a constrained mesh of a parametric patch. The constraint consists of a size map (which prescribes a size for every direction) associated with mesh vertices and also a shape quality associated with mesh elements. In fact, the aim is to construct a mesh that conforms to the specifications included in a given size map and such that its elements are as regular as possible.