Grant: Idea to Innovation

Quality automatic volumetric hexahedral, or cuboidal, mesh generation for generic 3D objects had been the holy grail of finite-element meshing since inception. A prototype hex-meshing algorithm developed by our lab makes significant advances toward this goal, generating better quality meshes for much wider range of inputs than any previous methodology. The goal of this research is to convert this preliminary prototype into a demo ready beta-version. We specifically plan to streamline the current prototype refining the software design to robustly support large input/output meshes, and provide user-expected features, which while well-researched, require implementation and testing in conjunction with our framework. We also plan to conduct extensive user testing of the software in collaboration with our current industry contacts, both testing the software internally on industry provided inputs, and providing a suitably documents, user-friendly version of the software for them to test in house. The requested funds will be used to fund a small team of software developers and meshing experts, most familiar with our framework who are well suited to address the tasks above. A small portion of the funding will cover patenting costs to protect underlying IP.