Methods for assigning attributes to a tetrahedral mesh

[eolophus]

I'm looking for alternative workflows for defining attributes on a tet mesh for FEM simulation.

Normally I would use intersecting volumes to define regions inside a tet mesh. But for my current purposes that would require producing some pretty complex geometry. The ability to paint these attributes would be simpler. For instance, it might be nice to be able to paint an attribute on the surface and have it penetrate the tet points at a given depth. (Though even if that were possible, I'm not sure how you would access deeply interior points that are not close enough to the surface.)

What methods do you use for assigning attributes to a tet mesh?

[konstantin magnus]

Hi eolophus,

not sure whether this is of any practical use, but you could either extend the solid nodes or implement an attribute injection method like this:

1. Paint some colors on the mesh surface (Red = Value; Green = Depth; Blue = Falloff)
2. Normalize the depth based on a signed distance field
3. Ray-transfer the mesh UVs along the volume gradient
4. Combine all these with uvsample() and smooth() to let the values sink in to various depths and falloffs.

inject_attribs.hipnc

[eolophus]

Thanks so much Konstantin! That's a very interesting approach. Wouldn't have thought of that on my own. I will definitely play around with the HIP file you attached.