Surface Mesher

Surface Mesher#

The Surface Mesher produces high-quality anisotropic surface meshes from watertight CAD geometries. It is currently opt-in: enable it via the beta mesher toggle in both the WebUI and the Python API.

Main characteristics:

  • requires a clean, watertight input geometry

  • generates anisotropic meshes, allowing finer refinement near leading and trailing edges

  • retains feature edges.

../../_images/new_sm_example.png

Example of a mesh generated using the Surface Mesher.#

Surface refinements#

User-defined refinements locally tighten the surface mesh beyond the global edge length and growth rate. One refinement type is available on the Surface Mesher:

  • Surface refinement (per-face): override the maximum edge length or the curvature-resolution angle on selected faces. Useful for surfaces that need finer or coarser resolution than the global setting provides, or where the geometry curvature warrants a tighter angular limit.

See also

Surface refinement setup: WebUI · Python.

Reducing node count#

The Surface Mesher automatically refines the mesh near feature edges, which can make the surface mesh denser than needed. Two adjustments help reduce the overall node count:

  • Coarsen the default edge spacing: set a high global surface max edge length and specify per-patch refinements only on the patches that need them. The mesher clusters nodes around feature edges subject to growth-rate and maximum-aspect-ratio constraints, so a larger global edge length lets cells stretch further along the edge while still satisfying those constraints, which reduces the number of nodes deposited along the edge. Per-patch refinements then restore the resolution where it matters.

  • Increase the edge growth rate: the default growth rate from feature edges can be conservative. Higher values produce a faster transition away from edges; up to 1.5 is recommended.

The combined effect of both adjustments is illustrated below for a simple 1 m cube test case. Each image shows a close-up view of a corner of the cube:

../../_images/sm_growth_1p2_max_0p05.png

Growth rate 1.2, max edge length 0.05 m, 103,031 surface nodes.#
../../_images/sm_growth_1p5_max_0p05.png

Growth rate 1.5, max edge length 0.05 m, 48,804 surface nodes.#
../../_images/sm_growth_1p5_max_0p1.png

Growth rate 1.5, max edge length 0.1 m, 24,061 surface nodes.#

See also

Setup: WebUI mesh parameters · WebUI surface refinement · Python.

Examples#

Examples of meshing using Surface Mesher can be found in the Python API Example Library:

Recommended for:

  • watertight aerospace geometries,

  • simple geometries of aerodynamic devices.

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