Recovery of an arbitrary edge on an existing surface mesh using local mesh modifications

This study describes an algorithm for recovering an edge which is arbitrarily inserted onto a pre-triangulated surface mesh. The recovery process does not rely on the parametric space of the surface mesh provided by the geometric modeller. The topological and geometrical validity of the surface mesh is preserved through the entire recovery process. The ability of inserting and recovering an arbitrary edge onto a surface mesh can be an invaluable tool for a number of meshing applications such as boundary layer mesh generation, solution adaptation, preserving the surface conformity, and possibly as a primary tool for mesh generation. The edge recovery algorithm utilizes local surface mesh modification operations of edge swapping, collapsing and splitting. The mesh modification operations are decided by the results of pure geometrical checks such as point and line projections onto faces and face-line intersections. The accuracy of these checks on the recovery process are investigated and the substantiated precautions are devised and discussed in this study. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.