The HexTet Hex-Dominant Automesher: An Interim Progress Report

Proceedings, 6th International Meshing Roundtable, Sandia National Laboratories, pp.183-194, October 1997

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Dr. Philip M. Tuchinsky
Ford Research Laboratory
Ford Motor Company
Mail Drop 2122 SRL
P.0. Box 2053 Dearborn, Ml 48121 USA
ptuchins@ford.com

Brett W. Clark
Datalogics. Inc.
276 East 950 South
Orem, UT 84058 USA
bclark@datalogics.com
formerly at Sandia National Laboratories

Abstract
HexTet is an automesher for general solid bodies. It meshes inward from an allquadfilatemi surface mesh, using an advancing-front "plastering" algorithm to create hexahedmi elements. HexTet fills as much of the volume as ft can, but leaves void regions where ft cannot hex-mesh further. It a partial hex mesh results, the remaining void regions are separated into polyhedra and each void- bounding quadrilateral face is diagonally split into two triangles. The resulting triangle-meshed polyhedral voids are then filled with tetrahedral elements to complete the mixed-element mesh. HexTet is implemented in the Ford Automesher and Sandia Cubit meshing tools. It robustly meshes many simpler solids. Research and development continues to improve its robustness with increasingly complex problems. This is a progress report.