OCTREE-BASED AUTOMATIC MESH GENERATION NON-MANIFOLD DOMAINS

Automatic mesh generation within the context of non-manifold geometric models is far from a commercial reality. While manifold objects are t he most commonly encountered domains in many applications, other appli cations such as those requiring multiple material models and mixed-mod el representations (combinations of 1-D, 2-D and 3-D domains) fall bey ond the realm of the existing automatic meshing procedures as they req uire a non-conventional modeling environment, namely the non-manifold topology (NMT) based environment. This paper focuses on automatic mesh generation issues in the context of two such applications. (i) finite element modeling for multiple material models and (ii) geometric abst ractions requiring a mixed-model representation. Specifically, the pap er describes a geometry utility system, built around an NMT data struc ture and geometry-based meshing algorithms that ensure the validity of the mesh for non-manifold domains.