A 3D Advancing-Front Delaunay Mesh Refinement Algorithm

TL;DR

This paper introduces a 3D advancing-front mesh refinement algorithm that produces high-quality constrained and truly Delaunay meshes for complex geometries, improving mesh quality bounds over existing methods.

Contribution

It extends a 2D algorithm to 3D, ensuring truly Delaunay meshes with better radius-edge ratio bounds and novel techniques for handling intersections and apex vertices.

Findings

Generates constrained Delaunay meshes with well-graded tetrahedra.

Achieves a radius-edge ratio less than * >  > 2/3, better than previous algorithms.

Uses novel split-on-a-sphere and mirroring techniques to satisfy Gabriel's condition.

Abstract

I present a 3D advancing-front mesh refinement algorithm that generates a constrained Delaunay mesh for any piecewise linear complex (PLC) and extend this algorithm to produce truly Delaunay meshes for any PLC. First, as in my recently published 2D algorithm, I split the input line segments such that the length of the subsegments is asymptotically proportional to the local feature size (LFS). For each facet, I refine the mesh such that the edge lengths and the radius of the circumcircle of every triangular element are asymptotically proportional to the LFS. Finally, I refine the volume mesh to produce a constrained Delaunay mesh whose tetrahedral elements are well graded and have a radius-edge ratio less than some $\omega^* > 2/\sqrt{3}$ (except ``near'' small input angles). I extend this algorithm to generate truly Delaunay meshes by ensuring that every triangular element on a facet satisfies Gabriel's condition, i.e., its diametral sphere is empty. On an ``apex'' vertex where multiple facets intersect, Gabriel's condition is satisfied by a modified split-on-a-sphere (SOS) technique. On a line where multiple facets intersect, Gabriel's condition is satisfied by mirroring meshes near the line of intersection. The SOS technique ensures that the triangles on a facet near the apex vertex have angles that are proportional to the angular feature size (AFS), a term I define in the paper. All tetrahedra (except ``near'' small input angles) are well graded and have a radius-edge ratio less than $\omega^* > \sqrt{2}$ for a truly Delaunay mesh. The upper bounds for the radius-edge ratio are an improvement by a factor of $\sqrt{2}$ over current state-of-the-art algorithms.