creation of faces from 3D element-vertex data

Joao Paulo Magalhaes

Hi All,

I have a non-structured grid comprised of 3D arbitrary elements. In this grid, each element is fully defined by its vertices. From this single information, I have to create additional face information, which would be:

For the grid: how many faces? For each face: how many and which vertices? For each element: how many and which faces?

Anybody could give me a clue on an efficient algorithm for doing this?

The problem is that I have a code that runs based on faces, but most grid generators give me an input file which contains only the element vertex information (ie, the vertices of each element). We're talking about enormous quantities element (several millions), so n^2 algorithms won't do.

Thanks, Joao Paulo Magalhaes