ObjectMesh™

This server provides unstructured tetrahedral and triangle meshing functionality. ObjectMesh and ObjectCAD are combined in Mesh Suite 2.0, with ObjectMesh acting as the client and ObjectCAD as the server. When used within Analyst, ObjectMesh is a server.

ObjectMesh produces triangle meshes on 3-D surfaces, and tetrahedrons in volumes, from ACIS® geometry representations. The user has control over the target element size, as well as a curvature-based scaling parameter that determines the element density near curved surfaces.

Element every 45 degrees (CVS = .1)	Element every 22.5 degrees (CVS = .05)	Element every 4 degrees (CVS = .01)
Tetrahedral meshes generated using different values of the curvature-based scaling parameter.

ObjectMesh also supports local or global mesh refinement based on a list of elements that are to be refined.

ObjectMesh can generate relatively small meshes (a few tens of thousands of elements) in a minute or two on a high-end PC, and has been used to generate meshes containing in excess of 2 million tetrahedra on a P3/550 in around an hour of cpu time. Some sample statistics are shown in the following table.

Element Type	# of elements	Computer	CPU time
Tetrahedron	3,496	P2/266/256	18 sec.
Tetrahedron	51,484	P2/266/256	205 sec.
Tetrahedron	228,843	P2/266/256	825 sec.
Tetrahedron	392,566	P3/550/512	840 sec.
Tetrahedron	956,329	P3/550/512	2400 sec.
Tetrahedron	2,248,235	P3/550/1024	3600 sec.

Development plans for ObjectMesh (incorporated into Mesh Suite and Analyst Accelerator Edition) include support for the generation of mid-noded, curved elements (using 2nd order shape functions). Such elements yield substantially improved results in finite element codes that can use them, such as Omega3p, since they more accurately represent curved surfaces than do the flat facets of regular tetrahedra.