# Computational Fluid Dynamics on 3D Point Set Surfaces

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for performing computational fluid dynamics directly on 3D point cloud data, eliminating the need for explicit surface reconstruction and enabling automatic flow simulations around scanned geometries.

## Contribution

It presents a novel approach that uses an extended implicit moving least squares representation and anisotropic tetrahedral meshing for CFD on point clouds, improving efficiency and control.

## Key findings

- Enables CFD directly on point clouds without surface reconstruction
- Provides better control of simulation precision with fewer nodes
- Automates flow computation around scanned geometries

## Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in many cases requires designing 3D models manually, which is a tedious task that requires specific skills. In this paper, we present a novel method for performing CFD directly on scanned 3D point clouds. The proposed method builds an anisotropic volumetric tetrahedral mesh adapted around a point-sampled surface, without an explicit surface reconstruction step. The surface is represented by a new extended implicit moving least squares (EIMLS) scalar representation that extends the definition of the function to the entire computational domain, which makes it possible for use in immersed boundary flow simulations. The workflow we present allows us to compute flows around point-sampled geometries automatically. It also gives a better control of the precision around the surface with a limited number of computational nodes, which is a critical issue in CFD.