347	RWTH Publication No: 47337        2012        IGPM347.pdf
TITLE	On Surface Meshes Induced by Level Set Functions
AUTHORS	Maxim A. Olshanskii, Arnold Reusken and Xianmin Xu
ABSTRACT	The zero level set of a piecewise-affine function with respect to a consistent tetrahedral subdivision of a domain in R3 is a piecewise-planar hyper-surface. We prove that if a family of consistent tetrahedral subdivions satisfies the minimum angle condition, then after a simple post- processing this zero level set becomes a consistent surface triangulation which satisfies the maximum angle condition. We treat an application of this result to the numerical solution of PDEs posed on surfaces. We show that the nodal basis of a P1 finite element space with respect to this surface triangulation is L2 -stable, provided a natural scaling is used. Furthermore, the issue of stability of the nodal basis with respect to the H1 -norm is addressed.
KEYWORDS	surface finite elements, level set function, surface triangulation, maximum angle condition
DOI	10.1007/s00791-013-0200-9
PUBLICATION	Computing and visualization in science 15(2), 53-60 (2012)