A valve mesh created by Spatial. (Image courtesy of Business Wire.)
The new meshing technology has been added into the software development kit (SDK) and is adopted from software from Distene S.A.S.. The aim is to improve the accuracy of moving from computer-aided design (CAD) models to mesh for complex computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulations.
This has resulted in a new product dubbed 3D Precise Mesh.
“The 3D Precise Mesh module includes high volume parallel tetrahedral meshing,” said Ray Bagley, product management director at Spatial Corp. “It’s really optimized for large modules with billions of elements.”
Bagley explains that Spatial has noticed a trend in the CAE world where people are simulating the whole assembly more and more. This is putting less focus on individual parts. The goal is to see more of the effects on the system. However, this puts a lot of strain on the mesher. To that end, Spatial thinks the 3D Precise Mesh will fill this niche.
As for Dassault Systèmes, “We were looking for a lightweight meshing component to be used in all our finite element solvers and decided on components from Distene. Their Tetrahedral meshing technology represents the de facto industry standard,” said Oleg Skipa, department manager at Dassault Systèmes.
What Simulation Engineers Can Expect from the New Mesher
Spatial explains that its offering of 3D Mesh has been expanded with 3D Precise Mesh. The new module offers configurable surface and volume meshing that is fast, customizable and accurate.
Since the new tool is already integrated into the SDK, designers need to provide only the interface to access the tool.
“3D Precise Mesh is an integration of Spatial’s 3D ACIS Modeler, the CGM Core Modeler from CATIA, the Dassault Systèmes’ modeling kernel and Distene’s MeshGems suite,” said Bagley.
Bagley explains that what sets 3D Precise Mesh apart from traditional meshers is that it doesn’t use an approximation of the CAD model. In theory, this will provide a more accurate mesh. However, once the mesh is made, 3D Precise Mesh can speed up changes by working off the mesh directly.
"Like other meshers, 3D Precise Mesh has the ability to build volume mesh from only a discrete, triangulated surface mesh," said Bagley. "The advantage of precise meshing, however, is in the default mode where all surface mesh nodes are calculated from the exact modeler surfaces rather than interpolated in a discrete mesh. This improved accuracy can really make a difference in high-precision analyses."
Some other key components of 3D Precise Mesh include:
- Volume and surface meshing
- SDK to be used in any application and preprocessing workflow
- Hexahedral, tetrahedral and hybrid meshing for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and other applications
- Defining density fields
“The mesher also has a module for adaptive meshing and iterative solving,” added Bagley. “It can take information from the solver and modify the mesh on its own for the next round of iterations.”
What Sets 3D Precise Mesh Apart?
3D Precise Mesh created by Spatial. (Image courtesy of Spatial Corp.)
“We also use Spatial’s 3D ACIS Modeler for our 3D geometry kernel,” said Skipa. “Crucially, these two technologies interface extremely well. Spatial can leverage this mesh technology and provide an integrated solution for customers.”
“The tool also has very strong capabilities for full hexahedral meshing in arbitrary CAD volumes,” said Bagley. “Additionally, it has hybrid meshing, which can create hexahedral meshes at the boundary and tetrahedral meshing in the infield. We didn’t have that in our previous product. This could have possibly been achieved using some programming on the part of the CAE analyst, but it would have been laborious.”
Bagley notes that another bonus is that 3D Precise Mesh will build the mesh based on the needs of the solver it is paired with. “With more integrative meshing,” he said, “you can have the solver and mesher talk to each other. This will make a more automatic mesher.”
“The CAD to solver link has long been a bottleneck in the 3D modeling world that Distene aims at reducing with automatic and industrial-strength meshing technologies,” said Laurent Anné, Sales director and cofounder of Distene. “This partnership leverages the technological heritage of both Spatial and Distene to provide analysis applications with an efficient CAD-to-solver link that is fast, flexible and, most importantly, delivers the best mesh available for critical simulation workflows.”
So, will 3D Precise Mesh replace MeshGems? It is unlikely to do so, and Distene and Spatial know this. This is why they are offering the new technology as an upgrade that can be integrated into modelers.
“We are not going to force others to use the new application,” said Bagley, “but for new application developers, we will shorten their route to market. New users looking to create processes will be guided to use 3D Precise Mesh, and many have told us that they are looking at it to replace their own homegrown meshers.”
As a result, the mesher should be able to construct a grid that will be compatible with any physics the solver is optimized for, be it finite element analysis (FEA) or CFD. Distene also has a long history of working with customers that work in the vibrational and electrical fields.
Will you try 3D Precise Mesh, or will you stick with what you have as a mesher? Comment below and tell us why.
To learn more watch the webinar: Accelerate your FEA Meshing, Modeling and Visualization.