[vtkusers] Support for curved elements

[Mark Beall]

Hi Ben,
One way to do this is to divide up each of your curved elements into
a larger number of straight-sided elements such that the resulting
mesh looks right. This has some bad side effects, not the least of
which is that the amount of data that you have to pass to vtk increases
greatly. However on the plus side, it does work. Depending on what 
you're doing it may or may not be a good solution.

Unfortunately, most (all?) visualization packages assume that your
geometry and data should be linearly interpolated. I can kind of
understand this from their point of view since as soon as you
go beyond that things get much more complicated than they already
are. I think that Will et. al. at Kitware have some good ideas of
how to incorporate such capabilities in vtk, all they are lacking
is sufficent interest from others (e.g. money) to put it in place.

If there are enough vtk users out there that expressed interest in
having such capabilities in vtk it could help Kitware find someone
to help fund those developments. So, if anyone else out there wants
this, please speak up.

mark

>Hello,
>
>I am wondering if anyone has experience with using VTK with quadratic
>curved-edge tetrahedral elements?  Is this possible?
>
>Regards,
>
>Ben
>
>Ben L. Held
>Simulation Technology & Applied Research, Inc.
>11520 N. Port Washington Rd.
>Suite 101B
>Mequon, WI  53092
>Phone: (262) 240-0291 x101
>FAX: (262) 240-0294
>e-mail: ben.held at staarinc.com
>web: http://www.staarinc.com
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>This is the private VTK discussion list. 
>Please keep messages on-topic. Check the FAQ at: 
><http://public.kitware.com/cgi-bin/vtkfaq>
>Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
>http://public.kitware.com/mailman/listinfo/vtkusers