Quality Partitioned Meshing of Multi-Material Objects

We present a simple but effective algorithm for generating topologically and geometrically consistent quality triangular surface meshing of compactly packed multiple heterogeneous domains in [Formula: see text]. By compact packing we imply that adjacent homogeneous domains or materials share some 0, 1, and/or 2 dimensional boundary. Such packed multiple material (or multi-material) solids arise naturally from classification/partitioning/segmentation of homogeneous domains in [Formula: see text] into different sub-regions. The multi-materials may also represent separate functionally classified sections or just be multiple component copies tightly fused together as perhaps by layered manufacturing processes. The input to our algorithm is a geometric representation of the entire multi-material solid, and a volumetric classification map identifying the individual materials. As output, each individual material region is represented by a triangulated 2-manifold boundary, with adjacent material regions having shared boundaries. Our algorithm has been implemented, and applied to different multi-material solids, and the results are additionally presented with quantitative analysis of detection and cure of non-manifold interfaces as well as spurious small components. These meshes are useful for combined boundary element analysis, however these simulation results are not presented.