A Three-Dimensional Cartesian Mesh Generation Algorithm Based on the GPU Parallel Ray Casting Method

Tiechang Ma,Tianbao Ma,Ping Li

doi:10.3390/app10010058

Abstract

Robust and efficient Cartesian mesh generation for large-scale scene is of great significance for fluid dynamics simulation and collision detection. High-quality and large-scale mesh generation task in a personal computer is hard to achieve. In this paper, a parallel Cartesian mesh generation algorithm based on graphics processing unit (GPU) is proposed. The proposed algorithm is optimized based on the traditional ray casting method in computer graphics, and is more efficient and stable for large-scale Cartesian mesh generation. In the process of mesh generation, the geometries represented by triangular facets are transformed into a mesh composed of orthogonal hexahedrons. A parallel ray generation method is proposed to reduce the data exchange between the host memory and device memory. A parallel primitives searching method based on lattice grid is adopted to search the triangular facets for intersection calculation between rays and triangles. The parallel Cartesian mesh generation algorithm has been implemented using CUDA library. The performance of parallel Cartesian mesh generation algorithm has been promoted enormously compared with the traditional the sequential algorithm, which is shown in different numerical experiments. Through some tests, the performance of parallel algorithm is analyzed, and the results show that the parallel computing power of the GPU is fully utilized. Finally, examples of Cartesian mesh generation are presented.

Highlights

Cartesian mesh has been wildly used in computational fluid dynamics [1,2,3,4], computational explosion mechanics [5], and computer graphics such as collision detection [6,7]
In computational fluid dynamics application, the geometric boundary conditions are discretized into the Cartesian mesh, and physical quantities are assigned on the mesh cells
In the computer graphics application, the Cartesian mesh generation process is similar with the voxelization, which can be used in collision detection and rendering scenes in three-dimensional games

Summary

Introduction

Cartesian mesh has been wildly used in computational fluid dynamics [1,2,3,4], computational explosion mechanics [5], and computer graphics such as collision detection [6,7]. Cartesian mesh is usually used as an approximate discretization for three-dimensional geometry. In computational fluid dynamics application, the geometric boundary conditions are discretized into the Cartesian mesh, and physical quantities are assigned on the mesh cells. In the computer graphics application, the Cartesian mesh generation process is similar with the voxelization, which can be used in collision detection and rendering scenes in three-dimensional games.

Methods

Results

Conclusion