TET_MESH_ORDER4
Pairs of Files Defining a 4-Node Tet Mesh

TET_MESH_ORDER4 is a data directory which contains examples of the organization of a scattered set of points in 3D into a set of nonintersecting tetrahedrons, with each tetrahedron defined by 4 points.

A 4-node tet mesh is called linear since it easily allows for piecewise linear interpolation of data values defined at the nodes.

The definition of an order 4 tet mesh requires two files:

• the node file lists the coordinates of a set of points.
• the tetra file lists quadruples of node indices, each of which forms a tetrahedron.

Licensing:

The computer code and data files described and made available on this web page are distributed under the GNU LGPL license.

Example of a node file:

As a very simple example, suppose we had the eight points that form the vertices of a unit cube. The node file might look like this:

        0.0  0.0  0.0
        0.0  0.0  1.0
        0.0  1.0  0.0
        0.0  1.0  1.0
        1.0  0.0  0.0
        1.0  0.0  1.0
        1.0  1.0  0.0
        1.0  1.0  1.0
      

Example of a tet mesh file:

A possible tet mesh of these nodes would be described by the following element file:

          4  3  5  1
          4  2  5  1
          4  7  3  5
          4  7  8  5
          4  6  2  5
          4  6  8  5
      

Sample Tet Mesh Datasets:

CUBE is the 8 vertices of a cube, defining 6 tetrahedrons.

• cube_nodes.txt, the node file;
• cube_elements.txt, the tetra file.
• cube.png, a PNG image of the tetrahedral mesh.

You can go up one level to the DATA page.