4. Methodologies

The enormous variety of existing meshing algorithms and the many different hybrid methods make an extensive overview difficult. This chapter is an attempt to give a complete classification of the main techniques which form the basis for practical mesh generation methods. Some of the techniques are suitable for tetrahedral as well as hexahedral mesh generation. Hexahedral meshes are created from, or result in quadrilateral surface meshes as for example depicted in Fig. 4.1. Purely hexahedral methods like whisker weaving and the spatial twist continuum [180] for the generation of unstructured hexahedral meshes are not discussed.

Figure 4.1: Unstructured quadrilateral surface mesh, MENTAT II [98].