Mesh Quality Improvement

Due to variations in the curvature of the underlying surface used to create a hexahedral mesh, the distribution of the projected nodes may be suboptimal. As a result, Laplacian smoothing has been incorporated into IA‐FEMesh as an option for smoothing the projected surface mesh. Laplacian smoothing acts to equalize the elemental edge lengths by adjusting the location of each node to the geometric center of its neighboring nodes. During this process, there is a tendency for the node being repositioned to move away from the surface. To ensure that the surface of the finite element mesh remains true to the desired underlying image‐based surface representation, the repositioned node is again projected onto the underlying surface using closest‐point projection. Once the surface nodes are established, elliptical or transfinite interpolation may be used to compute revised positions for the interior nodes; thereafter, the volume is filled with hexahedral elements.

The IA-FEMesh module tutorial includes step-by-step instructions (see step #4) and video screencasts that demonstrate how to perform mesh quality improvement.