Fast and robust mesh generation on the sphere-Application to coastal domains
Remacle, J.-F.; Lambrechts, J. (2018). Fast and robust mesh generation on the sphere-Application to coastal domains. Comput. Aided Des. 103: 14-23. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cad.2018.03.002
In: Computer-Aided Design. Elsevier: Guildford. ISSN 0010-4485; e-ISSN 1879-2685, more
This paper presents a fast and robust mesh generation procedure that is able to generate meshes of the earth system (ocean and continent) in matters of seconds. Our algorithm takes as input a standard shape-file i.e. geospatial vector data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. The input is initially coarsened in order to automatically remove unwanted channels that are under a desired resolution. A valid non-overlapping 1D mesh is then created on the sphere using the Euclidean coordinates system x, y, z. A modified Delaunay kernel is then proposed that enables generation of meshes on the sphere in a straightforward manner without parametrization. One of the main difficulty in dealing with geographical data is the over-sampled nature of coastline representations. We propose here an algorithm that automatically unrefines coastline data. Small features are automatically removed while always keeping a valid (non-overlapping) geometrical representation of the domain. A Delaunay refinement procedure is subsequently applied to the domain. The refinement scheme is also multi-threaded at a fine grain level, allowing to generate about a million points per second on 8 threads. Examples of meshes of the Baltic sea as well as of the global ocean are presented.
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