Quad Mesh Generation

The automatic generation of a mesh is usually called upon when attempting a finite element analysis of a structure of even moderate complexity. This case study presents source code for a method for automatic generation of a mapped mesh of quadrilaterals.

The example presented here is concerned with the generation of a good quality quad mesh on a unit square, with a set of edge subdivions to be specified as an input. In other words, the user should be able to stipulate the number of element sides to be used on each edge of the square. By way of example, the mesh depicted to the right illustrates a subdivision specification of [3, 5, 6, 4].

The generation of the mesh on a unit square is a somewhat simple example. However, it is possible to extend this functionality to general surface patches with the same topology - for example Coons patches, NURBS surfaces - provided that the surface is regular and well-behaved in the region of interest. Projection functions can be used to transform the surface in question into a unit-square for subsequent meshing, followed by a projection of internal nodes back onto the original surface.

The source code for the mesh generator is written in C++ and is downloadable through the following link:

Quad Mesh.zip