An Interpreted Language and System for the Visualization of Unstructured Meshes

Proceedings, 6th International Meshing Roundtable, Sandia National Laboratories, pp.233-248, October 1997

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Patrick J. Moran
MRJ Technology Solutions
NASA Ames Research Center, MIS T27A-2
Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA
paoraufnas.nasa.gor

Abstract
We present an interpreted language and system supporting the visualization of unstructured meshes and the manipulation of shapes defined in terms of mesh subsets. The language features primitives inspired by geometric modeling, mathematical morphology and algebraic topology. The adaptation of the topology ideas to an interpreted environment, along with support for programming constructs such as user function definition, provide a flexible system for analyzing a mesh and for calculating with shapes defined in terms of the mesh.

We present results demonstrating some of the capabilities of the language, based on an implementation called the Shape Calculator, for tetrahedral meshes in R3 .

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