MESH2D - Automatic Mesh Generation

Generates unstructured triangular meshes for general 2D geometry.

Description

MESH2D is a toolbox of 2D meshing routines that allows for the automatic generation of unstructured triangular meshes for general 2D geometry.

An iterative algorithm is used that attempts to optimise the mesh topology/vertex position to achieve high quality triangulations.

In addition to the fully automatic settings, MESH2D allows the user to specify sizing information, allowing for varying levels of mesh resolution within the domain.

MESH2D includes a large set of demos/benchmarks. Please see the following:

meshdemo - runs a standard set of demos.
mesh_collection - a collection of user contributed geometries.
facedemo - examples of geometry with connected faces.

MESH2D was previously released under a GNU license. This has been removed to cater for the current restrictions of the MATLAB file exchange. I apologise to the many users who have been unable to access MESH2D due to this license conflict.

Acknowledgements

This file inspired Accelerating Finite Element Analysis (Fea) In Matlab, Fgt Fold Geometry Toolbox, Iges Toolbox, and Remove Unconnected Triangle.

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7 (R14)

[Elias Pirayesh]

There are some useful examples on meshing a 3D surface on: http://persson.berkeley.edu/distmesh/

[Evgeny]

How can I use it on 3D surface?
Is there some algorithm to create unstructured triangular meshes for 3D geometry?

[William Barnhart]

One more fix. In quadtree.m, near line 528 (right before %Undo rotation, p=rotate(p,-theta)), add:

% remove duplicate nodes
goodid=find(h~=0);
p=p(goodid,:);
h=h(goodid);
for i=1:length(goodid)
t(t==goodid(i))=i;
end

So that's three places to fix with the comments below:
meshfaces.m, line 203
mytsearch.m, line 69
quadtree.m, line 528 (or thereabouts)

[William Barnhart]

**Correction**

In my tsearch, replace:
i(j) = tsearch(x,y,t,xi(j),yi(j));

with:
for k=1:size(t,1)
temp=inpolygon(xi,yi,x(t(k,:)),y(t(k,:)));
i(temp)=k;
end

Then, no need to worry about delaunay triangulations

[William Barnhart]

Tsearch fix courtesy of Rowena Lohman.
tsearch.m needs to be replaced in two locations. First:

in meshfaces.m, line 203 replace:
i=tsearch(ph(:,1),ph(:,2),th,p(:,1),p(:,2));

with:

for j=1:size(th,1)
temp=inpolygon(p(:,1),p(:,2),ph(th(j,:),1),ph(th(j,:),2));
i(temp)=j;
end

In mytsearch.m line 69, replace:
i(j) = tsearch(x,y,t,xi(j),yi(j));

with

t = DelaunayTri([x y]);
i(j)= pointLocation(t,[xi(j) yi(j)]);

This uses DelaunayTri which is being fazed out, but delaunayTriangulation can be equally used

[Thomas Benson]

Hi Darren, thanks for this submission. Is there a version of Mesh2d that works with V2012b ? (TSEARCH.m no longer works and requires the use of DelaunayTri.m). Cheers.

[Elliot]

I too need an update to replace tsearch function. The suggested replacement is not appropriate for me as performing 'DelaunayTri' within your routine can alter the triangulation depending on initial inputs i.e. I have specified internal boundaries, DelaunayTri does not respect these boundaries when implemented in the suggested way.

Is a modified/updated version in consideration?

thanks

[Song Chen]

Find the following line:

p = node;
e = edge;
i = tsearch(ph(:,1),ph(:,2),th,p(:,1),p(:,2));
Change it to

p = node;
e = edge;
dt = DelaunayTri(ph);
i = pointLocation(dt,p);

These two codes should be equivalent.

[Jody Klymak]

tsearch is gone as of 2012a. Any hope of a modification to use DelaunyTri?

[cleidinei]

 

[Richard Crozier]

I think Maxim is right:

>> A = triarea([0,0; 1,0; 0.5,1],[1,2,3])

A =

1.0000e+000

I think the area of that triangle should clearly be 0.5.

[Maxim]

Hello.
I think, there are a bug in the function "triarea".
I miss a factor 0.5 in row 14.
Thanks
Maxim

[Bryan]

Hello-

Thank you very much for this package, it is exactly what I'm looking for. I do have one question/comment. In Matlab 2011a, I get a warning that tsearch is going to be retired and to use delaunayTri/pointLocation isntead. I subbed in this set of commands (seemingly appropriately), and I cannot get the code to work correctly. Could you possibly advise on this? I'm going to use the code as is for the time being and try to implement and update. I'm not sure if you would be willing to use this update as a newer revision or are currently working on this problem.

Thank you,
Bryan

[Darren Engwirda]

Hi Philippe, you may want to have a look at the utility "connectivity" routine. Amongst other things, it will identify the boundary nodes in a mesh.

[Philippe N/A]

Hi and ty for the great toolbox.

I'm using this to make a mesh that I want to use in another modeling tool. This other tool requires me to give nodes that are located on the edge of the mesh figure.

So, once the mesh is generated, is there any way to retrive nodes that have been generated on the contour of the figure?

Regards,
Phil

[Jose Luis Prego]

Hi, thank you very much for your work. It looks impressive. However allow me to add a small suggestion. It would Very Nice if the Toolbox comes with a small info-note or Manual about the functions and how to start for a beginer. Appart from this you´ve made a Great Work!
Thank you again
:)

[Brian Faulkner]

Extremely helpful, this is a great library. Well documented and simple to use. Bravo sir, bravo.

[Diablo]

Thanks so much for your file upload. This was invaluable to me

[Philippe N/A]

Hi there.
First of all, thank you for that excellent toolbox.
I was wondering if it was possible to specify some point inside a geometric figure. For example, in the Lake Superior demo, I would like to insert a point in a specific location in the middle of the lake so the meshing is finer around that point. However, I can’t find how to do this. I bet I have to construct a new point (let’s say p8[x,y]) and connect it with existing points. But I get lost in that process.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

With regards,
Phil

[Greg]

I love your code, but I've recently begun some efforts to see if I can't speed up the runtime a bit.

Is there a particular reason why "mydelaunayn.m" uses the "delaunayn" function instead of the "delaunay" function? As far as I can tell on my machine (with Matlab 7.10), "delaunay" is around four times faster than "delaunayn" and the code seems to function just fine when I make the replacement.

[Marios Karaoulis]

Why the following fails with meshfaces. I can run it with mesh2d

node = [0.0, 0.0; 1.0,0.0; 1.0,1.0; 0.0,1.0; 2.0,0.0; 2.0,1.0; 3.0,0.0; 3.0,1.0];
edge = [1,2; 2,3; 3,4; 4,1; 2,5; 5,6; 6,3; 5,7; 7,8; 8,6];
faces{1} = [1,2,3,4];
faces{2} = [5,6,7,2];
faces{3} = [8,9,10,6];
hdata.edgeh=[1,0.05 ;7,1];
[p,t]=mesh2d(node,edge,hdata);
%[p,t,fnum]=meshfaces(node,edge,faces,hdata);

running it with meshfaces

??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions.

Error in ==> meshpoly>getedges at 283
bnd = e(~idx,:);
% Boundary edges

Error in ==> meshpoly at 88
e = getedges(t,size(p,1));
% Unique edges

Error in ==> meshfaces at 147
[pnew,tnew] =
meshpoly(node,edge(face{k},:),qtree,pbnd,options);

[Johannes Korsawe]

Very nice tool! Thank you a lot for sharing this.

Best regards, Johannes

Very minor irritation:
In line 127 of meshfaces.m, the variable wbar is addressed but never defined.

[Canh Le]

This is what I was looking for. Many thanks!!

[Ralph]

Hallo!

Thank you for this great work. Really, really helpful!

I need to ask a question: When using meshfaces, is it possible to use a different 'hfun' for each face?

Thanks,
Ralph

[Robert Moucha]

Many thanks,

Any plans to bypass MATLAB's tsearch?
In the 2010a release "Warning: TSEARCH will be removed in a future release. Use DelaunayTri/pointLocation instead."

[johnus magnus]

Just a great collection of functions, thankyou!

[Seth]

 

[Wes]

I would like to generate a mesh with certain nodes specified on the interior. When I try to do this I end up with areas of my domain that are not filled with elements. For example, I would like node[0.25 0.5] connected to node[0.75 0.5] and the mesh to fill the entire region from [0 0;1 0;1 1;0 1]. The actual meshes I would like to make have more complex node positions.

The following produces a hole in the mesh:

node=[0 0;1 0;1 1;0 1;0.25 0.5;0.75 0.5];
[p,t]=mesh2d(node);

[Marios Karaoulis]

 

[Marios Karaoulis]

Do you have any thoughts going 3D?

[Darren Engwirda]

Author comment: v24 was posted to resolve a licence conflict. The Mathworks no longer allows code to be released under a GNU GPL, so this has been removed for v24.

There are some (minor) revisions to the code, based on user feedback. Specifically, v24 may be slightly slower than v23, but should generally produce higher quality meshes, especially for complex geometries.

Comments/feedback is always welcome - [e-mail]

[Marios Karaoulis]

Hi, thanks again for your software. What's new in this version ( i am using v23).