VGM

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

MESH/GRID
GENERATION
SOFTWARE
SURVEY

Contact: Stephen J Alter, Charles Miller

Email: s.j.alter@larc.nasa.gov

Web Site: http://aaac.larc.nasa.gov/VGM/

Availability: Public Domain, Source Code Available

US Citizens and permanent residents only

Customer Support: Yes

Approximate Number of Users: 100

Pricing: Free

Platform: Windows, UNIX (UNIX boxes including LINUX)

Input:

PLOT3D, GRIDGEN, TECPLOT, and the CFD code LAURA, others are possible through user requests.

Engineering Discipline: Structural, CFD, Thermal, Electro Magnetic, Environmental

Elements: Quadrilateral, Hexahedra

Surface Meshing: Yes

Quad/Hex Method: Mapped Meshing, Structured Grid Generation

Trans-Finite Interpolation, Hermite Vector Interpolation, Parametric-Remapping. The last two are methods developed for VGM specifically.

Element Sizing Method: Manual

Manual as well as parametric. Element size can be controlled through parametric relations to existing grid data (points, lines, and surface and volume grids/meshes).

Other Features: Boundary Layers, Adaptivity, Refinement, Mesh_Improvement

Isotropic Grid Adaption, smoothing, inviscid to viscous grid conversion to improve boundary layer capture and modeling, grid refinement, topology changes, minor surface generation, fast modification of existing grids for parametric design studies.

VGM can and is usually used to perform grid refinement such as the conversion of inviscid grids to viscous grids for enhanced boundary layer modeling, as well as mesh improvement through reduced grid skewness, improved point spacing monotonicity, and even negative volume removal.

Comments:

This tool is driven by a grid manipulation language. The language
contains 12 commands, but each command has multiple arguments, and all
commands and arguments are literal; the VGM language is easy to read
and understand. When all options of the various commands are
exercised, over 1000 commands result. By combining the commands in
sequence, very complex manipulations are produced, and easily
repeatable. For these reasons, the VGM code can solve a multitude of
problems associated with structured grid generation, and the
generation of high fidelity meshes for computational sciences of all
types.

This code can be operated in a batch or interactive mode. The batch mode
permits the reuse of VGM scripts (lists of commands) for similar data
sets which provides fast generation and re-generation of structured grids
for parametric design studies.

Please note that this software was developed as part of a support
services contract from Lockheed Martin to NASA. For this reason, the
software is maintained and distributed by Lockheed Martin, but approval
to disseminate software lies with NASA. Hence, the inclusion of
NASA for contact and organization information.