Pointwise

From CFD-Wiki

Revision as of 13:36, 15 April 2014

Pointwise

Pointwise is a commercial mesh generation software product from Pointwise, Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. The product debuted in 2007.

The current production release is Version 17.2 R1, released in April 2014.

Mesh Types

Pointwise can generate the following types of meshes.

• Structured quad and hex (aka mapped mesh)
• Unstructured tri and tet
• Hybrid prism, tet, hex, pyramid

Meshing Techniques

Pointwise's mesh generation employs the following algorithms.

• Elliptic PDE smoothing
  • Laplace, Thomas-Middlecoff, Steger-Sorenson, von Lavante-Hilgenstock-White control function formulations
• Hyperbolic PDE-based extrusion
  • Steger's formulation for hex extrusion
• Algebraic extrusion
  • Prism and hex extrusion using translate, rotate, path, and normal methods
• Modified Delaunay
  • Tri and tet meshing with smoothing and diagonal swapping
• Advancing Front
  • For triangular surface meshing
• Anisotropic Tetrahedral Extrusion (T-Rex)
  • Extrusion of right-angle-included tets with boundary layer and wake clustering and optional prism and hex recombination

Geometry Support

Pointwise's geometry kernel supports both analytic (i.e. NURBS, CAD) and faceted (i.e. STL, VRML) formats.

Pointwise imports CAD geometry from the following formats.

• IGES
• STEP
• ACIS
• CATIA V4 & V5
• Pro/E
• NX (formerly Unigraphics)
• Parasolid
• SolidWorks

Faceted geometry can be imported from:

• STL
• VRML
• NASTRAN
• other

Geometry may be exported to IGES.

Geometry can be created in Pointwise. The following geometry primitives are available.

• Surface of revolution
• Ruled surface
• Coons surface
• Sweep surface
• Fillet
• Plane
• Line
• Curve
• Circle
• Conic
• Offset Curve
• Intersection
• Point

Pointwise's geometry kernel is a full B-Rep solid modeler. Geometry is assembled into a solid both automatically and manually as a means of dealing with gaps and overlaps between adjacent surfaces.

CFD Solver Interfaces

Pointwise has built-in support for the following flow solvers.

• AcuSolve
• ADPAC
• ANSYS CFX
• ANSYS FLUENT
• CFD++
• CFDShip-Iowa
• CFL3D
• CGNS
• CNSFV
• Cobalt
• COMO
• CRUNCH
• DTNS
• Exodus II
• FALCON
• FANS
• FDNS/UNIC
• FieldView
• FrontFlow
• FUN3D
• Gambit
• GASP
• GridPro
• INCA
• INCA V2
• Kestrel v1.0
• NASTRAN
• NCC
• NPARC
• NSU3D
• OpenFOAM
• Overflow
• PATRAN
• PHOENICS
• PLOT3D
• SCRYU
• SC/Tetra
• ShipIR
• Splitflow
• STAR-CCM+
• STAR-CD
• STL
• SU2
• TACOMA
• TASCflow
• TAU
• TEAM
• Tecplot
• TETREX
• UCD
• UGRID
• VRML
• USM3D
• VSAERO
• WIND
• WIND-US
• XPATCH

Pointwise also includes a Plugin API with which users can write their own CFD solver export function and have it included in the software at runtime.

Scripting

Pointwise includes a Tcl-based scripting language called Pointwise Glyph that can be used to write macros and templates for automating all or parts of the meshing process.

Supported Platforms

Pointwise supports both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the following platforms.

• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OS X