TQuad

Applies to: Surfaces

Summary: Converts a triangular surface mesh into a quadrilateral mesh.

Syntax:

TQuad Surface <range>

Discussion:

The TQuad command splits each triangular surface element in four quadrilateral elements, as shown in Figure 1. This is done by splitting each edge at its midpoint, and then forming connections to the center of the triangle. The result is the same as using the THex algorithm, but only applies to surfaces. In general it is better to use a mapped or paved mesh to generate quadrilateral surface meshes. However, the TQuad scheme may be useful for converting facet-based triangular meshes to quadrilateral meshes when remeshing is not possible.

Figure 1. A triangle split into 3 quads using the TQuad scheme