TetGen AIM Overview

A module in the Computational Aircraft Prototype Syntheses (CAPS) has been developed to interact with the open-source volume mesh generator, TetGen [1]. TetGen is capable of generating exact constrained Delaunay tetrahedralizations, boundary conforming Delaunay meshes, and Voronoi partitions.

An outline of the AIM's inputs and outputs are provided in AIM Inputs and AIM Outputs, respectively.

Current issues include:

The holes or seed points provided to TetGen by creating an taking the cnetroid of a tetrahedron from an 'empty' mesh. This is guaranteed to work with solid bodies, but sheet bodies with multiple segregated regions where some regions are holes require manual seed points to indicate the hole.
(Important) If Tetgen is allowed to added Steiner points (see "Preserve_Surf_Mesh" in AIM Inputs) discrete data transfer will NOT be possible.

TetGen Interface

In order to use TetGen, CAPS will automatically build the TetGen source code supplied in "library" mode. The directory in which the source code exists is set in the ESP configuration script. The C++ API is interfaced within the AIM through an interface function that takes the body tessellation and transfers the data to a "tetgenio" object in PLCs format (Piecewise Linear Complexes). After volume meshing is complete the mesh can be output in various mesh formats (see AIM Inputs for additional details).

Clearance Statement

This software has been cleared for public release on 05 Nov 2020, case number 88ABW-2020-3462.