Validity-first automatic polycube labeling for CAD models

Abstract: For many simulation codes, block-structured hex meshes remain preferred while their automatic generation is unsolved. We investigate the usage of a polycube-based approach. More specifically, we focus on the labeling stage, which consists in assigning each boundary facet to one of the 6 signed principal axis. Similar works are confronted with 2 challenges: over-constraining validity criteria, and the conflated processing of validity criteria with quality metrics. We tackle these obstacles with automatic routines based on semi-global labeling operators. Our approach is successfully tested on CAD models, which are of interest for many numerical simulation problems.