Improved Imprint and Merge for Conformal Meshing

Proceedings, 11th International Meshing Roundtable, Sandia National Laboratories, pp.285-296, September 15-18 2002

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

11th International Meshing Roundtable
Ithaca, New York, USA
September 15-18, 2002

Sandia National Labs and Carnegie Mellon University
drwhite@sandia.gov, saigal@andrew.cmu.edu

Abstract
This paper presents an algorithm for imprinting and merging adjacent parts. Imprint and merge is often used to facilitate generation of conformal meshes between adjacent parts. The algorithm tolerantly intersects the discretized boundary edges of adjacent faces to calculate the imprint Boolean. An input tolerance is used during the process to minimize the effect imprinting has on the meshing process. The topology changes from the imprint are generated using virtual geometry so that tolerant topology can be used. Several examples demonstrate how the present approach may be utilized to improve the mesh quality of conformal meshes over multiple parts. The approach is shown to work robustly with misaligned and poorly defined parts.

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