A method of surface mesh generation for industrial CAD models by constructing conforming discrete representation

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new approach for surface mesh generation of industrial CAD models by establishing a conforming discrete representation. Firstly, we develop a two-step strategy, A-Boolean, which combines the aligned surface meshing (ASM) and Boolean operations to generate conforming meshes for industrial CAD models with defects including gaps, contacts, overlaps and self-intersections. During the mesh generation, ASM can properly solve tiny gaps, contacts and intersections by given a small threshold. Then, the remaining defects can be repaired by the Boolean operations and avoid numerical errors. For each surface, the approximation error between the discrete model and original geometry is well controlled by appending orthogonal non-uniform grid points. Secondly, an additional topology reconstruction process is introduced to transform conforming meshes into manifold partitions, which enhance the reliability and versatility of the following meshing algorithm. During the construction of discrete representation, geometric issues that affect the reliability and quality of mesh generation can be effectively solved. Finally, high-quality meshes can be generated by a remeshing algorithm based on surface parameterization. Several examples are presented with comparisons against open-source and commercial software, demonstrating the validity of the proposed method.