Three-dimensional unstructured mesh generation: Part 2. Surface meshes

Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Elsevier, Vol 134, pp.269-284, 1996

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Wales Swansea, Swansea, SA2 8PP UK
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wales Swansea, Swansea, SA2 8PP UK

Abstract
This paper deals with surface patches and surface meshing. Triangular and quadrilateral patches in linear and quadratic forms, and Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) patch have been used to define surface geometry From the real application point of view, data conversion between the mesh generator and some existing CAD packages has been considered. As a result of this study, converters from a graphics data standard and several CAD data formats have been implemented. The quality improvement of surface meshes has been discussed in terms of parametric plane stretching, diagonal swapping and smoothing procedures. Furthermore. a scheme of visual representation is introduced to utilize colour effect in validating the geometry and its surface meshes.