Meso-Skeleton Guided Hexahedral Mesh Design

Abstract

We present a novel approach for the generation of hexahedral meshes in a volume domain given its meso-skeleton. This compact representation of the topology and geometry, composed of both curve and surface parts, is used to produce a raw decomposition of the domain into hexahedral blocks. Analysis of the different local configurations of the skeleton leads to the construction of a set of connection surfaces that are used as a scaffold onto which the hexahedral blocks are assembled. These local configurations of the skeleton completely determine the singularities of the final mesh, and by following the skeleton, the geometry of the produced mesh naturally follows the geometry of the domain. Depending on the end user needs, the obtained mesh can be further adapted, refined or optimized, for example to better fit the boundary of the domain. Our algorithm does not involve the resolution of any global problem, most decisions are taken locally and it is thus highly suitable for parallel processing. This efficiency allows the user to stay in the loop for the correction or edition of the meso-skeleton for which a first sketch can be given by an existing automatic extraction algorithm.