A high resolution PDE approach to quadrilateral mesh generation

We describe a high order technique to generate quadrilateral decompositions and meshes for complex two dimensional domains using spectral elements in a field guided procedure. Inspired by cross field methods, we never actually compute crosses. Instead, we compute a high order accurate guiding field using a continuous Galerkin (CG) or discontinuous Galerkin (DG) spectral element method to solve a Laplace equation for each of the field variables using the open source code Nektar++. The spectral method provides spectral convergence and sub-element resolution of the fields. The DG approximation allows meshing of corners that are not multiples of π/2 in a discretization consistent manner, when needed. The high order field can then be exploited to accurately find irregular nodes, and can be accurately integrated using a high order separatrix integration method to avoid features like limit cycles. The result is a mesh with naturally curved quadrilateral elements that do not need to be curved a posteriori to eliminate invalid elements. The mesh generation procedure is implemented in the open source mesh generation program NekMesh. •Cross-fields are replaced by a guiding field solved by a Laplace problem.•This field reduces the number of singularities for quadrilateral block decomposition.•Spectral elements are ideal for accurate streamline tracing.•A discontinuous Galerkin approximation provides a consistent solution at any corner.•The final quadrilateral mesh does not require a posteriori curving.