Towards object-oriented finite element pre-processors exploiting modern computer technology

This paper presents efficient pre-processing algorithms for the finite element method. While finite element pre-processing is well known, it appears to have been stuck with algorithms that work, and we have stopped seeking superior methods using new programming paradigms. To demonstrate the advantage of rewriting our code, we present new software that can handle any general 2D geometrical shape and uses object-oriented data structures to achieve superior performance. The user is allowed to construct the object freely using mouse and keyboard almost with no restriction. The software identifies invalid input such as overlapping polygons and handles them appropriately. Object-oriented data structures are used to represent the problem. Data are available to the user in the XML format. Special techniques are used to handle errors due to floating operations. The software is developed in Visual C++ and has been used for many finite element analysis problems successfully.