smesh/doc/salome/gui/SMESH/input/sewing_meshes.doc

/*!

\page sewing_meshes_page Sewing meshes

\n In SMESH you can sew elements of a mesh. The current
functionality allows you to sew:
<ul>
<li>\ref free_borders_anchor "Free borders"</li>
<li>\ref conform_free_borders_anchor "Conform free borders"</li>
<li>\ref border_to_side_anchor "Border to side"</li>
<li>\ref side_elements_anchor "Side elements"</li>
</ul>

\image html sewing.png "Sewing button"

<em>To sew elements of a mesh:</em>
<ol>
<li>From the \b Modification menu choose the \b Transformation item
and from its sub-menu select the \b Sewing item.</li>
<li>Check in the dialog box one of the radio buttons corresponding to
the type of sewing operation you would like to perform.</li>
<li>Fill the other fields available in the dialog box.</li>
<li>Click the \b Apply or <b>Apply and Close</b> button to perform the
  operation of sewing.</li>
</ol>


<br>
\anchor free_borders_anchor
<h2>Sew free borders</h2>

This functionality allows you to unite free borders of a 2D mesh.

There are two working modes: \a Automatic and \a Manual. In the \b
Automatic mode, the program finds free borders coincident within a
specified tolerance and sews them. Optionally it is possible to
visually check and correct is necessary the found free borders before
sewing. <br>
In the \b Manual mode you are to define borders to sew by picking
three nodes of each of two borders.

\image html sewing1.png
<center>Default mode is \a Automatic</center>

To use \b Automatic sewing:
<ul>
<li>Specify a mesh you want to sew by selecting it or any its part
  (group or sub-mesh) in the Object Browser or in the VTK Viewer.</li>
<li>Specify the \b Tolerance within which free borders are considered
  coincident. At the default zero \b Tolerance, the tolerance used by
  the search algorithm is defined as one tenth of an average size of
  elements adjacent to free borders being compared.</li>
<li>To visually check the coincident free borders found by the
  algorithm, switch off <b>Auto Sewing</b> check-box. Then controls
  to adjust groups of coincident free borders will become available in
  the dialog.</li>

\image html sewing_auto.png
<center>Controls to adjust groups of coincident free borders</center>

<li>\b Detect button launches the algorithm of search of coincident
  free borders.</li>
<li>The found groups of <b>Coincident Free Borders</b> are shown in a
  list, a group per a line. Each group has its own color which is used
  to display the borders of the group in the VTK Viewer. A free border
  within a group is designated by IDs of its first, second and last
  nodes within parenthesis. All borders present in the list will be
  sewn upon \b Apply.</li>
<li>\b Remove button removes selected groups from the list.</li>
<li><b>Select All</b> check-box selects all groups in the list.</li>
<li>When a group is selected, its borders appear in <b>Edit Selected
    Group</b> list that allows you to change this group.</li>
<li>
\image html sort.png
<em>Set First</em> button moves the selected border to the
  first position in the group, as a result other borders will be moved
  to this border during sewing.
</li><li>
\image html remove.png
<em>Remove Border</em> button removes selected borders from the
  group. It is active if there are more than two borders in the group.
</li>
<li>Selection of a border in the list allows to change its first and
  last nodes whose IDs appear in two fields below the list. \a Arrow
  buttons near each field move the corresponding end node by
  number of nodes defined by \b Step field.</li>
<li>
\image html swap.png
<em>Swap</em> button swaps the first and last nodes of a
  selected border.
</li>
</ul>

For sewing free borders manually you should switch the \b Mode to \b
Manual and define three points on each border: first, second and the
last node:

\image html sewing_manual.png
<ul>
<li>the first node specifies beginning of the border;</li>
<li>the second node specifies the part of the border which should be
considered (as far as the free border usually forms a closed
contour);</li>
<li>the last node specifies the end of the border.</li>
</ul>

You can select these nodes in the 3D viewer or define by its id.

The first and the second nodes should belong to the same link of a
face. The second and the last nodes of a border can be the same. The
first and the last nodes of two borders can be the same. The
corresponding end nodes of two borders will be merged. Intermediate
nodes of two borders will be either merged or inserted into faces of
the opposite border.

In practice the borders to sew often coincide and in this case it is
difficult to specify the first and the last nodes of a border since
they coincide with the first and the last nodes of the other
border. To cope with this,
\ref merging_nodes_page "merge" coincident nodes into one
beforehand. Two figures below illustrate this approach.
\image html sew_using_merge.png "Merge coincident nodes which are difficult to distinguish"
<br>
\image html sew_after_merge.png "After merging nodes it is easy to specify border nodes"

The sewing algorithm is as follows:
<ol>
<li>The parameter (U) of each node within a border is computed. So
that the first node has U=0.0, the last node has U=1.0, for the rest
nodes 0.0 < U < 1.0;</li>
<li>Compare node parameters of the two borders. If two nodes of the
opposite borders have close parameters, they are merged, i.e. a node
of the first border is replaced in all elements by a node of the
second border. If a node has no node with a close parameter in the
opposite border, it is inserted into an edge of element of the
opposite border, an element is split. Two nodes are considered close
enough to merge, if difference of their parameters is less than one
fifth of minimum length of adjacent face edges on the borders.</li>
</ol>

\image html image22.jpg "Sewing free borders"

<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a 
\ref tui_sew_free_borders "Sew Free Borders" operation.

<br>
\anchor conform_free_borders_anchor
<h2>Sew conform free borders</h2>

This functionality can be used to unite two free borders of a 2D mesh.

\image html sewing2.png

The borders of meshes for sewing are defined as for "Sew free borders"
except that the second free border is not limited and can be defined
by the first and the second nodes only. The first nodes of two borders
can be the same.

The algorithm is following: counting nodes starting at the first ones,
the n-th node of the first border is merged with the n-th node of the
other border, until the end of either of borders. Nodes of the first
border are replaced in all elements with corresponding nodes of the
second border.
\n For sewing conform free borders you should define three points on
the first border and two points on the second one. User can select
these nodes in 3D viewer or define node by its id.

\image html image23.jpg "Sewing conform free borders"

<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a 
\ref tui_sew_conform_free_borders "Sew Conform Free Borders"
operation.

<br>
\anchor border_to_side_anchor
<h2>Sew border to side</h2>

"Sew border to side" is intended to sew a free border to a mesh
surface.
\n The free border is defined as for "Sewing of free borders". The
place where to sew the border is defined by two nodes, between which
the border faces are placed, so that the first border node is merged
with the first node on the side and the last node of the border is
merged with the second specified node on the side.

\image html sewing3.png

The algorithm is following.
<ol>
<li>Find a sequence of linked nodes on the side such that the found
links to be most co-directed with the links of the free border.</li>
<li>Sew two sequences of nodes using algorithm of "Sewing of free berders".
\n For sewing border to side you should define three points on the
border and two points on the side. User can select these nodes in 3D
viewer or define node by its id.</li>
</ol>

\image html image30.jpg "Sewing border to side"

<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a 
\ref tui_sew_meshes_border_to_side "Sew Border to Side" operation.  

<br>
\anchor side_elements_anchor
<h2>Sew side elements</h2>

This operation is intended to unite two mesh surfaces.

\image html sewing4.png 

Surfaces may be defined by either 2d or 3d elements. The number of
given elements of the sides must be the same. The sets of given
elements must be topologically equal, i.e. each node of one element
set must have a corresponding node in the other element set and
corresponding nodes must be equally linked. If there are 3d elements
in a set, only their free faces must obey to that rule.
\n Two corresponding nodes on each side must be specified. They must
belong to one element and must be located on an element set boundary.

Sewing algorithm finds and merges the corresponding nodes starting
from the specified ones.

\image html image31.jpg "Step-by-step sewing process"

\image html image32.jpg "The result of side elements sewing"

For sewing side elements you should define elements for sewing and two
nodes for merging on the each side. User can select these elements and
nodes in 3D viewer or define them by its id.

<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a 
\ref tui_sew_side_elements "Sew Side Elements" operation.  

*/