Fast Isogeometric Boundary Element Method based on Independent Field Approximation

An isogeometric boundary element method for problems in elasticity is presented, which is based on an independent approximation for the geometry, traction and displacement field. This enables a flexible choice of refinement strategies, permits an efficient evaluation of geometry related information, a mixed collocation scheme which deals with discontinuous tractions along non-smooth boundaries and a significant reduction of the right hand side of the system of equations for common boundary conditions. All these benefits are achieved without any loss of accuracy compared to conventional isogeometric formulations. The system matrices are approximated by means of hierarchical matrices to reduce the computational complexity for large scale analysis. For the required geometrical bisection of the domain, a strategy for the evaluation of bounding boxes containing the supports of NURBS basis functions is presented. The versatility and accuracy of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by convergence studies showing optimal rates and real world examples in two and three dimensions.Comment: 32 pages, 27 figure

High-performance geometric vascular modelling

Image-based high-performance geometric vascular modelling and reconstruction is an essential component of computer-assisted surgery on the diagnosis, analysis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. However, it is an extremely challenging task to efficiently reconstruct the accurate geometric structures of blood vessels out of medical images. For one thing, the shape of an individual section of a blood vessel is highly irregular because of the squeeze of other tissues and the deformation caused by vascular diseases. For another, a vascular system is a very complicated network of blood vessels with different types of branching structures. Although some existing vascular modelling techniques can reconstruct the geometric structure of a vascular system, they are either time-consuming or lacking sufficient accuracy. What is more, these techniques rarely consider the interior tissue of the vascular wall, which consists of complicated layered structures. As a result, it is necessary to develop a better vascular geometric modelling technique, which is not only of high performance and high accuracy in the reconstruction of vascular surfaces, but can also be used to model the interior tissue structures of the vascular walls.This research aims to develop a state-of-the-art patient-specific medical image-based geometric vascular modelling technique to solve the above problems. The main contributions of this research are:- Developed and proposed the Skeleton Marching technique to reconstruct the geometric structures of blood vessels with high performance and high accuracy. With the proposed technique, the highly complicated vascular reconstruction task is reduced to a set of simple localised geometric reconstruction tasks, which can be carried out in a parallel manner. These locally reconstructed vascular geometric segments are then combined together using shape-preserving blending operations to faithfully represent the geometric shape of the whole vascular system.- Developed and proposed the Thin Implicit Patch method to realistically model the interior geometric structures of the vascular tissues. This method allows the multi-layer interior tissue structures to be embedded inside the vascular wall to illustrate the geometric details of the blood vessel in real world

Multiscale multiphysics simulation in composite materials

The improvements in terms of computational power provides the capability to analyze with more detail the materials behavior. On one hand, going deeper in the materials to study an increasingly smaller dimension and capture micro- or nano- changes. On the other hand, the increasing computational memory allows to perform finite elements analysis with billions of nodes, that permits to obtain more accurate results. In this sense, the focus of this work is the numerical modeling of the microscale behavior of inhomogeneous materials, with special attention to composite materials under thermo-mechanical loading conditions. This work also proposes and implements optimization tools, at a constitutive law level, as well as the level of both, macro- and micro-structural algorithms. The thesis is proposed as compendium of articles written during the last years and all published in Q1 international journals. In the first publication, a novel damage-mechanics micro-model is presented, able to represent the mechanical behaviors of masonry constituents. The proposed micro-model is based on a tension-compression continuum damage model. The adoption of appropriate failure criteria enables controlling the dilatant behavior of the material, even though this aspect is not generally associated to continuum damage models as it is for plasticity models. The study proposes a simple solution to this issue, consisting in the appropriate definition of the failure surfaces under shear stress states, together with the formulation of proper evolution laws for damage variables. The model keeps the simple and efficient format of classical damage models, where the explicit evaluation of the internal variables avoids nested iterative procedures, thus increasing computational performance and robustness. Another purpose of this research is to carry out a critical comparison of the proposed continuous micro-model with other two well-known discrete micro-modeling strategies. The second publication presents a full thermo-mechanical multiscale methodology, covering the nano-, micro-, and macroscopic scales. In such methodology, direcly deriving from the Classical First-Order Multiscale Method, fundamental material properties are determined by means of molecular dynamics simulations. Afterwards, the material properties obtained are used at the microstructural level by means of finite element analyses. Finally, the macroscale problem is solved while considering the effect of the microstructure using a thermo-mechanical homogenization on a representative volume element (RVE). The publication that close this thesis presents two computationally efficient multiscale procedures able to predict the mechanical non-linear response of composite materials. This is achieved, using an RVE Data Base (DB) calculated a-priori. Through the definitions of an equivalent damage parameter ($d_{eq}$), function of the global stress at the microscale, a series of strain controlled virtual tests of the RVE are performed storing in the DB the homogenized stress and strain state reached at certain levels of d_eq. Afterwards, the solution of the macroscale structure can be solved using the interpolation of the stored data. The first proposed procedure, named Discrete Multiscale Threshold Surface definition (DMTS), stores in the database the tenso-deformational state in which damage starts. Once reaching this state, a non-linear analysis will require the construction of the RVE to analyze the material damage evolution. On the other hand, the second method proposed, named Discrete Multiscale Constitutive Model (DMCM), is completely based on offline data and uses only the stress information stored in the DB to obtain the failure threshold and the non-linear material performance. In the article, special attention has been paid on the construction and validation of the Data Base, as well as on the study of a complete composite structure comparing the speedup obtained with both methods.En las últimas décadas, el avance en términos de poder computacional ofrece la capacidad de analizar más detalladamente el comportamiento de los materiales. Por un lado, profundizar los materiales para estudiar una dimensión cada vez más pequeña y capturar micro o nanocambios. Por otro lado, la capacidad de memoria computacional permite realizar análisis de elementos finitos con miles de millones de nodos, lo que permite obtener resultados lo más exacto posible. El objetivo de este trabajo es la modelización numérica del comportamiento microescala de materiales no homogéneos, con especial atención a los materiales compuestos, en condiciones de carga termo-mecánica, y la aplicación de herramientas de optimización de las leyes constitutivas, así como en a nivel macro y micro estructural. La tesis se propone como un compendio de artículos publicados en revistas internacionales. En la primera publicación, se presenta un micro-modelo basado en el daño mecánico, capaz de representar los comportamientos mecánicos de las estructura de mampostería. El micro-modelo propuesto se basa en un modelo de daño continuo por tensión-compresión. La adopción de criterios de daño apropiados permite al analista controlar la dilatancia del material, aunque este aspecto no está generalmente asociado a los modelos de daño continuo como lo es para los modelos de plasticidad. El estudio propone una solución simple a este problema, que consiste en la definición apropiada de las superficies de daño bajo estados de tensión de cortante junto con la formulación de leyes de evolución apropiadas para las variables de daño. El modelo mantiene el formato simple y eficiente de los modelos de daños clásicos, donde la evaluación explícita de las variables internas evita los procedimientos iterativos anidados, aumentando así el rendimiento computacional. Otro objetivo de esta investigación es realizar una comparación crítica del micro-modelo continuo propuesto con otras dos estrategias bien conocidas de micro-modelado discreto. Posteriormente, se presenta una metodología termomecánica multiescala completa, que cubre las escalas nano, micro y macroscópica. En dicha metodología, derivada directamente del Método Multiescala de Primer Orden, las propiedades fundamentales del material se determinan mediante simulaciones de dinámica molecular que se implementan en consecuencia a nivel microestructural por medio de análisis de elementos finitos. Por otro lado, el problema de macroescala se resuelve considerando el efecto de la microestructura mediante homogeneización termo-mecánica en un elemento de volumen representativo (RVE). Finalmente, se proponen dos procedimientos multiescala computacionalmente eficientes capaces de predecir la respuesta mecánica no lineal de materiales compuestos. Esto se logrará utilizando una base de datos (DB) calculada a priori. A través de las definiciones de un parámetro de daño equivalente (d_eq), funciónes de la tensión global de la microescala, se actuarán una serie de pruebas virtuales de la microescala con deformación controlada para almacenar en el DB el estrés y la tensión homogeneizadas alcanzado en ciertos niveles de d_eq. Posteriormente, la solución de la estructura de macroescala mediante el método multiescala de primer orden se reemplazará por la interpolación de los datos almacenados en el DB. El primer método propuesto, llamado Discrete Multiscale Threshold Surface (DMTS), proporcionará la generación de la RVE en la parte no lineal de la estructura, mientras que el segundo, llamado Discrete Multiscale Constitutive Model (DMCM), es completamente independiente del micromodelo porque solo se utiliza la información de estrés almacenada en el DB. En el articulo se ha prestado especial atención a la creación y validación de la base de datos y al estudio de una estructura compuesta completa comparando la aceleración en terminos de tiempo computationál obtenid

A hybrid representation for modeling, interactive editing, and real-time visualization of terrains with volumetric features

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Terrain rendering is a crucial part of many real-time applications. The easiest way to process and visualize terrain data in real time is to constrain the terrain model in several ways. This decreases the amount of data to be processed and the amount of processing power needed, but at the cost of expressivity and the ability to create complex terrains. The most popular terrain representation is a regular 2D grid, where the vertices are displaced in a third dimension by a displacement map, called a heightmap. This is the simplest way to represent terrain, and although it allows fast processing, it cannot model terrains with volumetric features. Volumetric approaches sample the 3D space by subdividing it into a 3D grid and represent the terrain as occupied voxels. They can represent volumetric features but they require computationally intensive algorithms for rendering, and their memory requirements are high. We propose a novel representation that combines the voxel and heightmap approaches, and is expressive enough to allow creating terrains with caves, overhangs, cliffs, and arches, and efficient enough to allow terrain editing, deformations, and rendering in real time

A novel parallel algorithm for surface editing and its FPGA implementation

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophySurface modelling and editing is one of important subjects in computer graphics. Decades of research in computer graphics has been carried out on both low-level, hardware-related algorithms and high-level, abstract software. Success of computer graphics has been seen in many application areas, such as multimedia, visualisation, virtual reality and the Internet. However, the hardware realisation of OpenGL architecture based on FPGA (field programmable gate array) is beyond the scope of most of computer graphics researches. It is an uncultivated research area where the OpenGL pipeline, from hardware through the whole embedded system (ES) up to applications, is implemented in an FPGA chip. This research proposes a hybrid approach to investigating both software and hardware methods. It aims at bridging the gap between methods of software and hardware, and enhancing the overall performance for computer graphics. It consists of four parts, the construction of an FPGA-based ES, Mesa-OpenGL implementation for FPGA-based ESs, parallel processing, and a novel algorithm for surface modelling and editing. The FPGA-based ES is built up. In addition to the Nios II soft processor and DDR SDRAM memory, it consists of the LCD display device, frame buffers, video pipeline, and algorithm-specified module to support the graphics processing. Since there is no implementation of OpenGL ES available for FPGA-based ESs, a specific OpenGL implementation based on Mesa is carried out. Because of the limited FPGA resources, the implementation adopts the fixed-point arithmetic, which can offer faster computing and lower storage than the floating point arithmetic, and the accuracy satisfying the needs of 3D rendering. Moreover, the implementation includes Bézier-spline curve and surface algorithms to support surface modelling and editing. The pipelined parallelism and co-processors are used to accelerate graphics processing in this research. These two parallelism methods extend the traditional computation parallelism in fine-grained parallel tasks in the FPGA-base ESs. The novel algorithm for surface modelling and editing, called Progressive and Mixing Algorithm (PAMA), is proposed and implemented on FPGA-based ES’s. Compared with two main surface editing methods, subdivision and deformation, the PAMA can eliminate the large storage requirement and computing cost of intermediated processes. With four independent shape parameters, the PAMA can be used to model and edit freely the shape of an open or closed surface that keeps globally the zero-order geometric continuity. The PAMA can be applied independently not only FPGA-based ESs but also other platforms. With the parallel processing, small size, and low costs of computing, storage and power, the FPGA-based ES provides an effective hybrid solution to surface modelling and editing

Efficient and High-Quality Rendering of Higher-Order Geometric Data Representations

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) bezeichnet den Entwurf industrieller Produkte mit Hilfe von virtuellen 3D Modellen. Ein CAD-Modell besteht aus parametrischen Kurven und Flächen, in den meisten Fällen non-uniform rational B-Splines (NURBS). Diese mathematische Beschreibung wird ebenfalls zur Analyse, Optimierung und Präsentation des Modells verwendet. In jeder dieser Entwicklungsphasen wird eine unterschiedliche visuelle Darstellung benötigt, um den entsprechenden Nutzern ein geeignetes Feedback zu geben. Designer bevorzugen beispielsweise illustrative oder realistische Darstellungen, Ingenieure benötigen eine verständliche Visualisierung der Simulationsergebnisse, während eine immersive 3D Darstellung bei einer Benutzbarkeitsanalyse oder der Designauswahl hilfreich sein kann. Die interaktive Darstellung von NURBS-Modellen und -Simulationsdaten ist jedoch aufgrund des hohen Rechenaufwandes und der eingeschränkten Hardwareunterstützung eine große Herausforderung. Diese Arbeit stellt vier neuartige Verfahren vor, welche sich mit der interaktiven Darstellung von NURBS-Modellen und Simulationensdaten befassen. Die vorgestellten Algorithmen nutzen neue Fähigkeiten aktueller Grafikkarten aus, um den Stand der Technik bezüglich Qualität, Effizienz und Darstellungsgeschwindigkeit zu verbessern. Zwei dieser Verfahren befassen sich mit der direkten Darstellung der parametrischen Beschreibung ohne Approximationen oder zeitaufwändige Vorberechnungen. Die dabei vorgestellten Datenstrukturen und Algorithmen ermöglichen die effiziente Unterteilung, Klassifizierung, Tessellierung und Darstellung getrimmter NURBS-Flächen und einen interaktiven Ray-Casting-Algorithmus für die Isoflächenvisualisierung von NURBSbasierten isogeometrischen Analysen. Die weiteren zwei Verfahren beschreiben zum einen das vielseitige Konzept der programmierbaren Transparenz für illustrative und verständliche Visualisierungen tiefenkomplexer CAD-Modelle und zum anderen eine neue hybride Methode zur Reprojektion halbtransparenter und undurchsichtiger Bildinformation für die Beschleunigung der Erzeugung von stereoskopischen Bildpaaren. Die beiden letztgenannten Ansätze basieren auf rasterisierter Geometrie und sind somit ebenfalls für normale Dreiecksmodelle anwendbar, wodurch die Arbeiten auch einen wichtigen Beitrag in den Bereichen der Computergrafik und der virtuellen Realität darstellen. Die Auswertung der Arbeit wurde mit großen, realen NURBS-Datensätzen durchgeführt. Die Resultate zeigen, dass die direkte Darstellung auf Grundlage der parametrischen Beschreibung mit interaktiven Bildwiederholraten und in subpixelgenauer Qualität möglich ist. Die Einführung programmierbarer Transparenz ermöglicht zudem die Umsetzung kollaborativer 3D Interaktionstechniken für die Exploration der Modelle in virtuellenUmgebungen sowie illustrative und verständliche Visualisierungen tiefenkomplexer CAD-Modelle. Die Erzeugung stereoskopischer Bildpaare für die interaktive Visualisierung auf 3D Displays konnte beschleunigt werden. Diese messbare Verbesserung wurde zudem im Rahmen einer Nutzerstudie als wahrnehmbar und vorteilhaft befunden.In computer-aided design (CAD), industrial products are designed using a virtual 3D model. A CAD model typically consists of curves and surfaces in a parametric representation, in most cases, non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). The same representation is also used for the analysis, optimization and presentation of the model. In each phase of this process, different visualizations are required to provide an appropriate user feedback. Designers work with illustrative and realistic renderings, engineers need a comprehensible visualization of the simulation results, and usability studies or product presentations benefit from using a 3D display. However, the interactive visualization of NURBS models and corresponding physical simulations is a challenging task because of the computational complexity and the limited graphics hardware support. This thesis proposes four novel rendering approaches that improve the interactive visualization of CAD models and their analysis. The presented algorithms exploit latest graphics hardware capabilities to advance the state-of-the-art in terms of quality, efficiency and performance. In particular, two approaches describe the direct rendering of the parametric representation without precomputed approximations and timeconsuming pre-processing steps. New data structures and algorithms are presented for the efficient partition, classification, tessellation, and rendering of trimmed NURBS surfaces as well as the first direct isosurface ray-casting approach for NURBS-based isogeometric analysis. The other two approaches introduce the versatile concept of programmable order-independent semi-transparency for the illustrative and comprehensible visualization of depth-complex CAD models, and a novel method for the hybrid reprojection of opaque and semi-transparent image information to accelerate stereoscopic rendering. Both approaches are also applicable to standard polygonal geometry which contributes to the computer graphics and virtual reality research communities. The evaluation is based on real-world NURBS-based models and simulation data. The results show that rendering can be performed directly on the underlying parametric representation with interactive frame rates and subpixel-precise image results. The computational costs of additional visualization effects, such as semi-transparency and stereoscopic rendering, are reduced to maintain interactive frame rates. The benefit of this performance gain was confirmed by quantitative measurements and a pilot user study