Interactive all-hex meshing via cuboid decomposition
Abstract
Standard PolyCube-based hexahedral (hex) meshing methods aim to deform the input domain into an axis-aligned PolyCube volume with integer corners; if this deformation is bijective, then applying the inverse map to the voxelized PolyCube yields a valid hex mesh. A key challenge in these methods is to maintain the bijectivity of the PolyCube deformation, thus reducing the robustness of these algorithms. In this work, we present an interactive pipeline for hex meshing that sidesteps this challenge by using a new representation of PolyCubes as unions of cuboids. We begin by deforming the input tetrahedral mesh into a near-PolyCube domain whose faces are loosely aligned to the major axis directions. We then build a PolyCube by optimizing the layout of a set of cuboids with user guidance to closely fit the deformed domain. Finally, we construct an inversion-free pullback map from the voxelized PolyCube to the input domain while optimizing for mesh quality metrics. We allow extensive user control over each stage, such as editing the voxelized PolyCube, positioning surface vertices, and exploring the trade-off among competing quality metrics, while also providing automatic alternatives. We validate our method on over one hundred shapes, including models that are challenging for past PolyCube-based and frame-field-based methods. Our pipeline reliably produces hex meshes with quality on par with or better than state-of-the-art. We additionally conduct a user study with 21 participants in which the majority prefer hex meshes they make using our tool to the ones from automatic state-of-the-art methods. This demonstrates the need for intuitive interactive hex meshing tools where the user can dictate the priorities of their mesh.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1145/3478513.3480568
Entities
People
- Dmitriy Smirnov
- Justin Solomon
- Lingxiao Li
- Paul Zhang
- S. Mazdak Abulnaga
Organizations
- Adobe
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Army Research Office
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- National Science Foundation