Abstract
Simple SummaryManual modeling of complicated insect wings presents considerable practical challenges. To overcome these challenges, therefore, we developed WingMesh. This is an application for simple yet precise automatic modeling of insect wings. Using a series of examples, we showed the performance of our application in practice. We expect WingMesh to be particularly useful in comparative studies, especially where the modeling of a large number of insect wings is required within a short time.The finite element (FE) method is one of the most widely used numerical techniques for the simulation of the mechanical behavior of engineering and biological objects. Although very efficient, the use of the FE method relies on the development of accurate models of the objects under consideration. The development of detailed FE models of often complex-shaped objects, however, can be a time-consuming and error-prone procedure in practice. Hence, many researchers aim to reach a compromise between the simplicity and accuracy of their developed models. In this study, we adapted Distmesh2D, a popular meshing tool, to develop a powerful application for the modeling of geometrically complex objects, such as insect wings. The use of the burning algorithm (BA) in digital image processing (DIP) enabled our method to automatically detect an arbitrary domain and its subdomains in a given image. This algorithm, in combination with the mesh generator Distmesh2D, was used to develop detailed FE models of both planar and out-of-plane (i.e., three-dimensionally corrugated) domains containing discontinuities and consisting of numerous subdomains. To easily implement the method, we developed an application using the Matlab App Designer. This application, called WingMesh, was particularly designed and applied for rapid numerical modeling of complicated insect wings but is also applicable for modeling purposes in the earth, engineering, mathematical, and physical sciences.
Highlights
The finite element (FE) method is a numerical technique which is generally used to simulate a physical phenomenon in the virtual world by solving complex boundary value problems [1,2]
The skills of the software user can strongly influence the process and the final result. These often lead to oversimplified models and, can affect the accuracy of simulation results
We combined it with the mesh generator Distmesh2D to develop an application for the rapid modeling of geometrically complex domains that consist of several subdomains
Summary
The finite element (FE) method is a numerical technique which is generally used to simulate a physical phenomenon in the virtual world by solving complex boundary value problems [1,2]. The simplicity of the method and the high quality of the produced mesh are the key advantages of the proposed method It has a major drawback: finding the distance to boundaries by the use of the mathematical equation f (x, y) = 0 or by values of a discrete set of points, as explained by the authors, is a time-consuming and error-prone procedure for complex geometries. We aimed to address these challenges and improve the performance of Distmesh2D but still maintain its simplicity To this end, we used computer vision to automatically detect the boundary of a domain in a given image. We used computer vision to automatically detect the boundary of a domain in a given image We combined it with the mesh generator Distmesh2D to develop an application for the rapid modeling of geometrically complex domains that consist of several subdomains. The proposed application, called WingMesh, draws extensively on Persson and Strang’s account in an attempt to offer a simple, but more practical, meshing tool
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