Orthogonal and conformal surface grid generation Original Research Article

Surface grid-generation algorithms are based on a projection strategy, consisting in generating a grid on the surface parametric plane, and then to project it on the surface. However during the projection step the grid characteristics, such as point distribution and orthogonality, are often not correctly transported. To overcome these difficulties, a new approach is proposed which can be divided into two main steps: (i) the parameterization of the surface by isothermal coordinates, (ii) the generation of a two-dimensional grid on the conformal parametric plane and its projection on the surface. In this way the projection is based on a conformal map, preserving angles and scale-length ratios.