Pointwise Mesh Generator
Pointwise is a commercial mesh generator from a company called (what else) Pointwise. It can generate structured or unstructured surface meshes from very complex CAD geometry, usually imported as an IGES file. Pointwise started to replace the more arcane Gridgen product from the same company around 2007.
Documentation
Usage
The following is a .cshrc snippet:
# set up Pointwise mesh generator
setenv PWID_LICENSE_FILE @license-host
and a .bashrc snippet:
# set up Pointwise Gridgen mesh generator
export PWID_LICENSE_FILE=@license-host
Ask someone who knows about the license-host. Add this to your startup file and source it. These settings are also stored in .flexlmrc after first launch.
Then double-click the application in /Network/Applications/Pointwise. If the application is installed locally, e.g., on a laptop, it is typically found in /Applications/Pointwise.
To launch from command line, use:
open /Network/Applications/Pointwise/Pointwise.app
3D Grid Export
3D grids can be exported using the FV-UNS format, and then converted to MIXD format using the FV2MIXD converter. A plug-in is under development by Thorsten.
2D Grid Export
2D grids can be exported using the UCD format, and then converted to MIXD format using the surf2mixd.ucd variant of Surf2MIXD. Boundary data can be then recovered using the ever-so-popular but undocumented MIXD2Mrng (in CVS), or with UCD2Mrng. Another option is a Tcl/Tk converter written by Lutz and updated by Eva; this works only for triangular but not for quadrilateral meshes at the moment. A plug-in is under development by Thorsten.
CATS Administration
License daemon should be started automatically from /etc/rc.local, but most often fails to start. It can be manually started by executing the relevant line in that script (it's SUID to sgeadmin). Our 2 licenses expire on September 30, 2012. Pointwise 16.03 (2011) and Gridgen 15.11 (2008) are currently installed.
A Pointwise Teaching Partnership license for 10 students expires on September 30, 2012. This license should be only used for CES and mechanical engineering project work.
Screenshot
Pointwise 16 running on Mac OS X natively.
