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Abstract
When making a finite-element mesh from a solid model, users have faced a dilemma: whether to use tetrahedral (tet) elements, which can lead to inaccurate results, or manually create a mesh using 8-moded brick hexahedral (hex) elements, which is tedious and time-consuming. To end this dilemma, Algor Inc. has released Houdini 2.0, software that automatically generates hexahedral elements from virtually any solid model. This is believed to be an important advancement since it can be shown that hex elements provide more accurate results and require less compute time. In addition, hex elements provide other advantages. For example, meshes comprised of these elements are easier to visualize than those made of tetrahedrons.