Accessing CAD Geometry for Mesh Generation

One of the major issues of mesh generation today is access to CAD geometry in an accurate and efficient manner. This paper will provide an overview the process of accessing CAD geometry for mesh generation and will review several of the issues associated with accessing CAD geometry for mesh generation. This paper will also evaluate alternative techniques for accessing CAD geometry and review how these techniques address or do not address the issues related to CAD geometry access for mesh generation. The techniques for CAD geometry access to be reviewed include: Translation & Healing, Discrete Representations, Direct Geometry Access, and Unified Topology Accessing Geometry Directly. The intent of this paper is to provide an overview to the alternative approaches and how they address the specific issues related to accessing CAD geometry for mesh generation. It is not the intent of this paper to provide detailed algorithms related to accessing or repairing CAD data.