meshplot: Fast FEM mesh visualization using VTK (OpenGL)

A function for visualizing finite element meshes with optional nodal scalar fields using Python and VTK (OpenGL). Code is documented.

A function for visualizing finite element meshes with optional nodal scalar fields using Python and VTK (OpenGL). Code is documented.

Requirments:

1) Python. You can install Python from https://www.python.org/downloads/.

2) VTK (Python package). Once Python is installed, you can install the VTK package by running the command pip install vtk from the command prompt.

Note: if pip install vtk does not work, you may have a Python version that is too recent and VTK may not yet be available for your version (install an older version of Python to proceed).

You can call meshplot like so:

% plot the mesh only
meshplot(nodes, elements);

% plot the mesh with a nodal scalar field
meshplot(nodes, elements, scalars);

% plot the mesh with a nodal scalar field and specify the scalar range
meshplot(nodes, elements, scalars, [100 400]);

% specify optional arguments
meshplot(nodes, elements, scalars, 'ShowLines', false, 'Colormap', jet(32), 'Title', 'Stress (MPa)');

nodes is a n-by-3 matrix containing the (x, y, z) coordinates of each node, where n is the number of nodes.

nodes = [
    x1, y1, z1
    x2, y2, z2
    ...
    xn, yn, zn
];

elements is a 1D struct array containing the element data with the following fields:

• elements(i).NodeIndices: a vector containing the node indices (connectivity) of the i-th element.
• elements(i).CellType: the VTK cell type (vtkCellType.VTK_QUAD, vtkCellType.VTK_TETRA, etc.); see vtkCellType.m for the full list.

% (example) defining the 5th element
elements(5).NodeIndices = [14, 2, 15, 213];
elements(5).CellType = vtkCellType.VTK_QUAD;

scalars (optional) is a vector with length n containing the values of the nodal scalar field, where n is the number of nodes.

scalars = [v1, v2, ..., vn];