Maximal Poisson-disk Sampling for Variable Resolution Conforming Delaunay Mesh Generation: Applications for Three-Dimensional Discrete Fracture Networks and the Surrounding Volume

Abstract

We propose a two-stage algorithm for generating Delaunay triangulations in 2D and Delaunay tetrahedra in 3D that employs near maximal Poisson-disk sampling. The method generates a variable resolution mesh in 2- and 3-dimensions in linear run time. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated by generating an unstructured 3D mesh on a discrete fracture network (DFN). Even though Poisson-disk sampling methods do not provide triangulation quality bounds in more than two-dimensions, we found that low quality tetrahedra are infrequent enough and could be successfully removed to obtain high quality balanced three-dimensional meshes with topologically acceptable tetrahedra.