about Unstructured Meshes

[Jianing Shi]

> > I took a look at the tutorial in PETSc using meshes.  Looks like there
> > is a mixture programming of meshes (written in OOP) and the PETSc
> > solver.  Looks very complicated, I must say.
>
> Well, in my experience, implementing this is usually 100 times more
> complicated, so I invite you prove me wrong.

I can see it is a lot of work to implement it.  I am a beginner in
PETSc, even using it seems complicated to me : )

> > Besides, what would be a golden packages using meshes that would work
> > with PETSc?  Say, PETSc (solver) +  ParMetis (partition meshes) + Some
> > sort of mesh generators (I don't what)?
>
> I do not understand the question.

Well, let me rephrase my question.  So the mesh support in PETSc
already includes the functionality of partitioning meshes, I guess,
using ParMetis, is that the case?  Something that an end user need to
worry about is really how to generate a mesh that is tailored towards
his/her application.

I am trying to write a library on top of PETSc meshes that will
generate meshes according to some neurophysiology.  I would like to
know what are the mesh generate softwares out there that will
interface nicely with PETSc, or if it makes sense for me to write my
own?  Just would like to understand more about the data structure in
the PETSc ALE::Mesh classes.  Is there any tutorial out there apart
from looking at the source code in the mesh directory?

I am currently using the petsc-2.3.2-p3.  Is there any new
functionality about meshes in the development version?

Jianing