[vtk-developers] VTK classes useful for meshless methods visualization

[Bill Lorensen]

The VTK renderers can (at least they used to) render points and oyu can set
the size of the point. This is a rudimentary approach.

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Michel Audette
<michel.audette at kitware.com>wrote:

> Dear VTK developers,
>
> I'm interested in the development of a visualization technique for meshless
> methods, which is a fairly hot topic in continuum mechanics these days, in
> the course of a proposal that I am writing.
>
> The basic idea is that the meshless formalism does away with an assemblage
> of elements, which in 3D would normally be tetrahedra, and replaces finite
> elements with functions of local support (eg radial basis functions)
> centered at each point, within a cloud of points, in discretizing partial
> differential equations. It turns out that the expressions in finite elements
> that relate deformation, stress and strain and that normally would be solved
> in their weak form on a system of equations based on* elemental* shape
> functions instead can be restated in terms of *radial *shape functions
> defined about one point, or node. In short, the computation is done on a
> cloud of points, not on a mesh of triangles or tetrahedra.
>
> The main attraction for this type of formalism, is that if the tissue
> undergoes a topological change, such as cutting or resection in an
> interactive surgery simulator, there is no need to re-mesh dynamically,
> which is a complex problem, especially if high-quality tetrahedra are needed
> in the re-meshed result to ensure computational stability.
>
> Moreover, visualization of what goes on tends to involve* surfels*(surface elements), or boundary points of the point-cloud, as well as an
> estimate of the surface normal at each boundary point.
>
> My question then is, what classes exist in VTK for handling surface
> rendering of a set of surfels, as well as updating the visualization
> efficiently to account for possibly resected points, while exploiting the
> temporal stability of unresected points?
>
> Thanks for your consideration.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michel
>
> --
> Michel Audette, Ph.D.
> R & D Engineer,
> Kitware Inc.,
> Chapel Hill, N.C.
>
>
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