Composite Geometry

• Composite Curves
• Composite Surfaces

The virtual geometry module has the capability to combine a set of connected curves into a single composite curve, or a set of connected surfaces into a single surface. The general purpose is to suppress or remove the child geometry common to those entities being composited. For example, compositing a set of curves suppresses the vertices common to those curves, thus removing the constraint that a node must be placed at that vertex location.

The basic form of the command to create composites is:

Composite Create {Surface|Curve} <id_list>

This command will composite as many surfaces (or curves) as possible, in many cases creating multiple composites.

The entities combined to create the composite must either all be unmeshed or all be meshed. A meshed composite surface can not be removed unless the mesh is first deleted.

Care should be taken when compositing over large C¹ discontinuities as it may cause problems for the meshing algorithms and may result in poor quality elements. C¹ discontinuities are corners or abrupt changes in the surface normal.

The command to remove a composite is:

Composite Delete {Surface|Curve} <id>