CCSweep: automatic decomposition of multi-sweep volumes

• Published in: Engineering with computers Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 222 - 236
• Main Authors: White, David R, Saigal, Sunil, Owen, Steven J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg Springer Nature B.V 01.09.2004
• Subjects: Boolean algebra; Decomposition; Discretization; Handles; Intervals; Mathematical analysis; Proposals; Sweeping
• ISSN: 0177-0667; 1435-5663
• DOI: 10.1007/s00366-004-0290-6

CCSweep is a new method to automatically decompose multi-sweepable volumes into many-to-one sweepable volumes. Multi-sweepable volumes contain both multiple source and multiple target faces. In hexahedral mesh generation, most sweeping techniques handle many-to-one sweepable volumes that contain multiple source faces, but they are limited to volumes with only a single target face. Recent proposals to solve the multi-sweep problem have several disadvantages, including: indeterminate edge sizing or interval matching constraints, over-dependence on input mesh discretization, loop Boolean restrictions on creating only loops with even numbers of nodes, and unstable loop imprinting when interior holes exist. These problems are overcome through CCSweep. CCSweep decomposes multi-sweep volumes into many-to-one sweepable sub-volumes by projecting the target faces through the volume onto corresponding source faces. The projected faces are imprinted with the source faces to determine the decomposition of the solid. Interior faces are created to decompose the volume into separate new volumes. The new volumes have only single target faces and are represented in the meshing system as real, solid geometry, enabling them to be automatically meshed using existing many-to-one hexahedral sweeping approaches. The results of successful application of CCSweep to a number of problems are shown in this paper.