Abstract:

The straight walk algorithm is commonly-used in searching for a mesh cell containing a query point in a given large scale unstructured mesh of a bounded domain. It could be used in the computational geometry and several other fields, including finite element solutions of partial differential equations. However, this algorithm does not work in some degenerate cases, such as the intersection point coincides with the vertex. In this paper, as an improvement, a new straight walk algorithm is presented to make it work for degenerate (or singular) cases in a tetrahedral mesh, which is well verified in our numerical tests.

Key words:

Straight walk algorithm, Tetrahedral mesh, Degenerate , case, Point location