Description of the mesh concept

   

The requirements from both numerical and visualization methods can be met by the data interface, which we describe in this section. It uses a procedurally linked list of elements, where the geometric type of each element may change from element to element. No fixed set of element types is prescribed, but a geometric description is used which is able to handle all types of elements which are parameterized over a convex polyhedron.

In the following sections, we describe the underlying concepts and structures (in C-notation) in a bottom-up way:

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element type description,

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element data,

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mesh data.

We present only the structures for threedimensional meshes. The corresponding structures for twodimensional meshes are straightforward and quite similar; the main difference is, that the description of 2D elements is a lot simpler.

• Description of the geometric element type