Subsections

- Identification of Apexes and Folds
- Selection of Points to Include in the Coarse Mesh

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Selecting Vertices to Retain in the Coarse Mesh

An experienced analyst can look at an unstructured mesh and identify important features that should be retained in a coarse mesh. For example, a person would choose to retain the vertex at the sharp trailing edge of an airfoil in two dimensions and corners in three-dimensional geometry. Elsewhere in the mesh, a person would choose a sampling of points, not too close together but also not leaving any large blank areas. This section describes a vertex selection algorithm that makes the same choices. Critical to the success of the algorithm is the notion of a hierarchy of features in the mesh, from sharp corners on the boundary to plain interior vertices. The algorithm is summarized below in terms of this hierarchy, from most to least specialized; the remainder of this section discusses the details of the algorithm.

Figure 6.1: Examples of apexes and folds.

1. An apex is a boundary vertex at which a sharp corner is formed; examples are identified in Figure 6.1 by solid circles. Apexes are always included in the coarse mesh.
2. A fold is a line on the surface of a three-dimensional object where the surface normal is discontinuous.6.1 A typical example for aerospace applications is the trailing edge of a wing, as shown schematically in Figure 6.1 (bold lines). For isotropic surface meshes, alternate fold vertices are retained.

   Identification of apexes and folds is discussed in Section 6.1.1.

3. A maximal independent set (MIS) of the remaining boundary vertices is included in the coarse mesh. That is, a set of fine mesh vertices are chosen such that the included vertices are not too geometrically close to each other and that every excluded vertex is too close to at least one included vertex. See Section 6.1.2 for details.
4. Finally, an MIS of the remaining interior vertices is selected for inclusion in the coarse mesh.

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Identification of Apexes and Folds

Apexes and folds are lower-dimensional mesh features: an apex is a zero-dimensional entity, while a fold is a one-dimensional entity in a three-dimensional mesh. To determine whether a boundary vertex is an apex or lies on a fold, the algorithm computes the unit normals of all faces (edges in 2D, triangles in 3D) that are incident on the vertex.

In two dimensions, only two faces are incident on a vertex. If these faces have normals that differ in direction by more than , the vertex is classified as an apex.

In three dimensions, the presence of two distinct face normals (separated by some user-defined angle ) generally means that the vertex lies on a fold, whereas three distinct normals are present if and only if the vertex is an apex. Three cautionary notes are in order here.

1. The angle difference at which two normals are considered ``distinct'' must be chosen with attention to surface curvature. If this angle is chosen too small, then many edges in the mesh of a curved surface will be improperly labeled as folds. Advanced techniques in surface reconstruction and curvature estimation (see, for example, [6,13]) may be of substantial benefit in distinguishing between a coarse surface mesh and an abrupt change in the underlying smooth surface; adding such capability to GRUMMP is planned.
2. In identifying apexes, it is not enough to compare only the normals of adjacent surface faces. A sharp-tipped cone can easily be constructed with enough surface faces incident on its apex that their normals differ in direction by an arbitrarily small amount. Instead, we must group faces so that members of each group have normals that differ by less than . The number of such groups is the deciding factor in whether a vertex is an apex.
3. A vertex can have only two groups of normals and still be an apex. As an example, suppose that the two visible faces in the lower-left corner of Figure 6.1 were nearly coplanar. To detect this case, the algorithm checks for near-collinearity of the edges that separate the two groups. If the edges are nearly collinear, the vertex lies on a fold; otherwise, it is an apex.

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Selection of Points to Include in the Coarse Mesh

Apexes are always retained in the coarse mesh. This choice has positive and negative side effects. On the positive side, not object can ever be eliminated from the mesh if apexes are retained. On the negative side, small features on large objects are likely to be retained, even when typical cell sizes are much larger than the feature in question.

Elsewhere, the mesh is coarsened with the goal of reducing mesh size while maintaining a good distribution of vertices and therefore good mesh quality. One intuitive approach to this problem is to keep as many vertices as possible without keeping two that are too close together: a maximal independent set (MIS) of the conflict graph of the mesh [7]. In the conflict graph, an edge connects any pair of vertices that are physically too close together compared with the length scale defined for those two vertices. This graph is similar but not identical to the connectivity graph, as occasionally first neighbor vertices in the mesh are far enough apart to co-exist in the coarse mesh, whereas some second neighbor vertices are too close together.

For efficiency reasons, GRUMMP constructs the conflict graph as needed. Before using the MIS to coarsen boundary curves, the conflict graph for boundary curve vertices is constructed. Later, when the MIS for boundary vertices is needed, that conflict graph is constructed, and likewise for isotropic interior vertices. Because only currently active vertices have their conflict graph computed at each step, no vertex ever has its conflict graph re-generated.

GRUMMP uses MIS vertex selection in three places: folds, surface meshes, and interior meshes. Applying the same MIS code for these three cases requires only appropriate restrictions on which vertices are active, as these are the only vertices that the algorithm can legally mark for inclusion or exclusion from the coarse mesh. For selection of surface vertices, for example, only plain surface vertices are active; any specialized surface vertices (apexes or folds) and all interior vertices are inactive. In each case, the maximal independent vertex set is constructed in two phases: initial creation and size improvement. In the initial creation phase, the algorithm traverses the mesh using an advancing front, marking any unmarked, active vertex for inclusion in the coarse mesh and all active vertices which conflict with for exclusion. Next, several passes are made to increase the size of the MIS, with the expectation that this will make edge lengths match the intended mesh length scale more closely in the coarse mesh.