A finite element method for virtual reality data

Image synthesis languages like POV-Ray and VRML do not give detailed descri ption of the surfaces of the objects they generate, and therefore it is qui te difficult to use them for engineering computations. Rather than trying t o serve the problem of data translation, we propose to apply the fictitious domain method in the numerical solution. We explain what are the difficult ies and give some solutions with an illustration of a finite element comput ation for a three-dimensional acoustic scattering problem. (C) 2000 Academi e des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.