Is there any idea to have Tet or Hex meshing? Or is it too specialized (or not written into your mesher) to think about.

Hi Burr,

> Is there any idea to have Tet or Hex meshing? Or is it too
> specialized (or not written into your mesher) to think about.

I don't really have any experience with doing volumetric meshing for applications like Finite Element Analysis or stuff like that.

I think it would require a pretty different kind of meshing approach than the current mesher, it's not like something that would just be a simple tweak of the current one.

I don't think it is likely that it's something that I would be able to implement directly inside of MoI, that's probably going to require a specialized tool instead.


But most analysis tools that would require that kind of special mesh structure to work with also have meshers built into them as well and can take in your original model by IGES or STEP formats.

What is it that you need to do with the volumetric mesh, do you have some particular application that needs to use one but does not have any meshing process built into it?

- Michael

Hi Michael,
I was looking at FEA. I contacted Cubit for the meshing, but they want big dough and didnt respond to my request for an eval extension. I was looking at lisa to do some integration with MoI, but the only support is STL (yours does a great job, and I still have some research to do with the Lisa and STL) but they recommend against that mesh strategy. They dont do NURBS import and require rebuilding the model inside of Lisa.

Anyway, I understand that it wont be something you can/want to tackle with MoI. I was hoping it was some kind of quick tweek to your method, since it does such a powerful job already.

I suppose there's a reason all those others cost big dough. I'm a little miffed that our gov has developed a great one and gives it away in places, but wont let it go for us "little taxpayers".

Thanks

Hi Burr, you might look at some of these:

Kubrix: http://www.siw.com/index.html

Moldex: http://www.moldex3d.com/

CADRE looks like it may be able to do some analysis work on surface meshes like MoI creates, rather than only volumetric ones: http://www.cadreanalytic.com/

Strand7: http://strand7.com


Some of these have plug-ins that run inside of Rhino:
http://www.rhino3d.com/resources/default.asp?category=5&language=


Since geometry can be moved very well from MoI into Rhino, a combination of Rhino + one of these plugins from a company that specializes in this kind of stuff could be a good way to go.


I think that there are a variety of other analysis programs out there as well, so you might keep looking for other ones as well.

- Michael

Thanks Michael,
Was trying to create FEA for MoI! :o

does exist a free prog with the "Zebra function" ?
just for speedy tool visualisation

Hey Frenchy..

FEA is more like, "How hard can I bend that before it breaks". Or "How far will this melted plastic go through this tube before it cools and stops flowing" knid of stuff.

Hi Burr,

> Thanks Michael,
> Was trying to create FEA for MoI! :o

Maybe in the future at some point we'll get there! :)

But just imagine how much time it would take for me right now if I tried to tackle it myself...

I guess it would be possible if I completely stopped doing other things like modeling tools and stuff like that and only concentrated on making FEA tools for MoI, but because I don't have a lot of experience in that area, it's hard to imagine that I would come up with something useful without spending many many years working on it.

Maybe in the future I'll be able to have plug-ins for MoI and have some of those other companies that specialize in those kinds of tools to do plug-ins for them.

But just trying to support people doing plugins would probably be a full time job itself so even to do that right now I'd probably have to stop doing other kinds of work like modeling tools...

So using some other programs in combination with MoI is probably your best bet for this, at least for quite a long while to come.

If something like Rhino would be useful to you for things like FEA plug-ins, there isn't any reason to avoid it! :)


I mean I understand that it would be cool if MoI could do every single function that you needed, but keep in mind that I only have 24 hours in a day to do work... ;)

- Michael

Yes Michael,
I misworded my intention. LISA is free and extensible and can act as client or server. I was looking to see if "I" could make the connection. Not really asking if you would do it for me. I just needed to ask if the meshing was possible with MoI. It is. As STL.

Thanks for the response.

Hi Burr, sorry I misunderstood you!

I'm not familiar with LISA and I didn't know that it was a free package, that is interesting.

- Michael

> does exist a free prog with the "Zebra function" ?
> just for speedy tool visualisation

Rhino evaluation version? You don't need the save function, right?

Did you mean the visual evaluation of the cleanliness of your modelling?

I do, as attacherd, regularly in Carrara.

Brian

Hi Burr,

This is free and imports STEP and IGES.
http://www.geuz.org/gmsh/

-

Hey Danny,

Thanks for that link. It's a cool program. Funny, I love his viewport. I think he made it with a product I'm evaluating right now.

I'm going to fool around with it a bit. The output is limited :o I can't catch a break! I'll see if I can dig anything out of it. I'll also have to look at his licensing scheme if I can find anything valuable in it.

Anyway, Thanks again. It's a tiny gem.

Hi Brian. Zebra is used to evaluate surface curvature and continuity. It's not based on UV textures...

jonah

No problem Burr, your welcome.

Yeah it is a bit limited in output formats, I guess the Nastran and stl formats would be the most used, but like you I'd have to play around with it to see what else it can do.

-

new version of Gmsh 2.51
http://geuz.org/gmsh/



CalculiX
http://www.calculix.de/]
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQzHGyZmuHg

Hi, Pilou

Have tried Gmsh as a mesher for step or iges files exported from MoI?
Thanks,
Bas

Yes no problem here with IGES format from Moi, idem for Step ;)
And perfect also for STL : you obtain of course at start same meshing polygonal than Moi ;)