[Gmsh] How to generate a parabaloid or surface from an equation?

[Christophe Geuzaine]

> On 7 Dec 2020, at 22:30, Paul K <paulklasmann at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear All,
> I would like to generate a parabaloid surface, for example a parabolic reflector surface that is defined by an equation.  Is this possible? First I would use Gmsh on its own to generate the surface mesh that I plan to use in a physical optics PO and GTD simulation.  In a CAD program I would plot the curve from the vertex and rotate into a BOR object.
> Second, I'd like to be able generate any arbitary surface using a function so that I can simulate a shaped or distorted reflector.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
> 

There's currently no predefined primitive for parabolas in Gmsh, but depending on the required accuracy you could maybe simply fit a spline through some points?

If having an exact parabola is mandatory, we could interface https://old.opencascade.com/doc/occt-7.0.0/refman/html/class_geom___parabola.html. In this case we should decide on the interface, as providing the bounding points might not be practical (and not even that simple).

Let us know,

Christophe



> My final goal is to write a C++ program with a wxWidgets GUI and to include gmsh as the mesh generator for the PO simulator and possibly have a way of visualising the reflector and mesh. Thank you.
> 
> Kind Regards
> Paul
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— 
Prof. Christophe Geuzaine
University of Liege, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 
http://people.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/geuzaine