ECCOMAS 2024

Spline-Based Parameterisation Techniques for Plane Graphs

  • Hinz, Jochen (EPFL)
  • Buffa, Annalisa (EPFL)
  • Antolín, Pablo (EPFL)

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Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) has emerged as a promising variant of classical FEM for modeling complex problems arising in real-world physical systems. Unlike FEM, IGA employs the de-facto CAD standard of spline-based parametric descriptions for representing the geometry. The same spline technology is then employed as a basis for analysis. Despite the promise of mitigating the CAD to FEM geometrical conversion overhead, Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) has witnessed the development of innovative numerical schemes that leverage the advanced smoothness inherent in spline basis functions. A common challenge in engineering applications is generating a conforming parameterisation of a domain composed of several faces, where only the descriptions of the faces' boundaries are available. In this setting, the geometry can be represented as a plane graph composed of vertices and edges, wherein each edge represents a spline curve or a dense point set. These edges are organised into groups that form closed loops, each representing the boundary of a face. The purpose of this talk is presenting spline-based parameterisation techniques for plane graphs, respecting the requirement that each face be parameterised individually to, for instance, impose locally differing material parameters. We adopt the concept of harmonic maps as the underlying parameterisation method which is then applied to the faces one-by-one. Each face's multipatch layout is selected from a large catalogue of multipatch templates. The presented technique produces a multipatch paramterisation with a conforming interface between the faces while offering a large degree of automation. It may then be utilised for numerical simulation based on IGA, or converted back into an arbitrarily-dense classical mesh by collocating the face's surface splines.