Virtual Topology Operators for Meshing

Proceedings, 6th International Meshing Roundtable, Sandia National Laboratories, pp.49-66, October 1997

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Alla Sheffer: Institute of Computer Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel. e-mail: sheffa0cs.huji.ac.il
(on leave at D.E.R Faculty Leonard de Vinci, Paris la Defense, France)

Ted Blacker, Jan Clements Michel, Bercovier: Fluent Inc., 500 Davis St., Suite 600, Evanston, Illinois 60201, USA. e-mail: ted@fluent.com

Abstract
In recent years several automatic SD Meshing algorithms have emerged. However direct analysis of CAD models is still elusive. Among the major obstacles preventing automation is the necessity to edit the CAD models to be suitable both for the analysis objectives and the available meshing algorithms. Such editing includes topology correction and validation, detail suppression and decomposition. Editing the geometry directly (e.g. surface redefinitions) is cumbersome, tedious, and expensive. Introducing virtual topology allows such operations as modifications to the topology only. In this work the concept and operators of virtual topology are described, along with their use in performing the required editing of the model A set of automatic and semi-automatic tools for the various editing operations are introduced.

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