[Other] Unstructured Grids Add-on for Blender

tkeskita · July 29, 2019, 11:24

Hello world,

I've been working on a new Blender based 3D mesh editing tool for OpenFOAM (and later on VTK) users: Unstructured Grids (UG) is an add-on for Blender 2.8 for importing, editing and exporting of 3D volume meshes composed of arbitrary polyhedron cells (a.k.a 3D unstructured grids). Editing includes tasks like moving of selected vertices, and assigning selected boundary faces to named patches. The add-on Imports and Exports OpenFOAM PolyMesh format.

The add-on is now at proof-of-concept level, and it seems to be working OK, at least for small and medium size meshes. Please feel free to try it out and discuss on this thread, thanks!

Here is example of current functionality. Boundary face assignment:

And here mesh modification by moving vertices:

BR,
Tuomo

fusij · August 13, 2019, 11:37

Hello, thank you for this addon.

Can you move individual vertices? For example, if you have a faulty cell, you could edit the positions of the vertices of that cell.

tkeskita · August 13, 2019, 12:45

Hi,

yes, you can move any vertex selection (and that's the only thing you can do to geometry currently). So if you know which vertices are bad then you could try to move those by hand. But if there are many bad cells it might be a lot of work.

PS. Currently I'm working on adding cell zone and face zone support.

tkeskita · August 22, 2019, 08:37

FYI: Now cell zones are fully supported (using Blender vertex groups). Face zones are read, shown and exported as such, but creation/modification is currently unsupported, since it requires flipMap (face direction) support in GUI.

I also added a GUI: "UG" tab is available in Sidebar of 3D Viewport for mesh objects.

tkeskita · September 30, 2019, 12:51

Some improvements regarding cell editing:

- Deletion of selected cells is now supported
- New cells can be extruded from face selection. This is currently WIP and very slow, but it allows interesting body-fit mesh cases. Here is extrusion (followed by Blender mesh twist) example:

tkeskita · May 4, 2020, 01:53

FYI I wrote manual for the Unstructured Grids Blender Add-on, please have a look at https://unstructured-grids.readthedocs.io/

Looks like the images in previous messages are not showing up any more, those can be found also in the docs.

BR,
Tuomo

July 29, 2019, 11:24	Unstructured Grids Add-on for Blender	#1
tkeskita New Member Tuomo Keskitalo Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 23 Rep Power: 12	Hello world, I've been working on a new Blender based 3D mesh editing tool for OpenFOAM (and later on VTK) users: Unstructured Grids (UG) is an add-on for Blender 2.8 for importing, editing and exporting of 3D volume meshes composed of arbitrary polyhedron cells (a.k.a 3D unstructured grids). Editing includes tasks like moving of selected vertices, and assigning selected boundary faces to named patches. The add-on Imports and Exports OpenFOAM PolyMesh format. The add-on is now at proof-of-concept level, and it seems to be working OK, at least for small and medium size meshes. Please feel free to try it out and discuss on this thread, thanks! Here is example of current functionality. Boundary face assignment: And here mesh modification by moving vertices: BR, Tuomo wyldckat, fusij, jherb and 3 others like this.

September 30, 2019, 12:51		#5
tkeskita New Member Tuomo Keskitalo Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 23 Rep Power: 12	Some improvements regarding cell editing: - Deletion of selected cells is now supported - New cells can be extruded from face selection. This is currently WIP and very slow, but it allows interesting body-fit mesh cases. Here is extrusion (followed by Blender mesh twist) example: Daniel_Khazaei likes this.

May 4, 2020, 01:53	Documentation for Unstructured Grids Blender Add-on	#6
tkeskita New Member Tuomo Keskitalo Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 23 Rep Power: 12	FYI I wrote manual for the Unstructured Grids Blender Add-on, please have a look at https://unstructured-grids.readthedocs.io/ Looks like the images in previous messages are not showing up any more, those can be found also in the docs. BR, Tuomo

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August 13, 2019, 11:37		#2
fusij Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 56 Rep Power: 13	Hello, thank you for this addon. Can you move individual vertices? For example, if you have a faulty cell, you could edit the positions of the vertices of that cell.

August 13, 2019, 12:45		#3
tkeskita New Member Tuomo Keskitalo Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 23 Rep Power: 12	Hi, yes, you can move any vertex selection (and that's the only thing you can do to geometry currently). So if you know which vertices are bad then you could try to move those by hand. But if there are many bad cells it might be a lot of work. PS. Currently I'm working on adding cell zone and face zone support.

August 22, 2019, 08:37		#4
tkeskita New Member Tuomo Keskitalo Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 23 Rep Power: 12	FYI: Now cell zones are fully supported (using Blender vertex groups). Face zones are read, shown and exported as such, but creation/modification is currently unsupported, since it requires flipMap (face direction) support in GUI. I also added a GUI: "UG" tab is available in Sidebar of 3D Viewport for mesh objects.