How to create a 3d mesh with a unique property for every element?

I'm struggling to create a finite element mesh to suit my needs for a thermal model. I'm starting from a data file that has 3d rectangular elements of variable size and physical properties. The physical properties (conductivity and heat production) cannot simply be separated into descrete zones as each element is different.

I've been able to create a mesh using delaunay.m and geometryFromMesh.m, but I cannot figure out how to efficiently assign a unique set of properties to each element (i.e. each element becomes its own cell). The code does not seem to be set up to work this way. Any ideas are welcome.

Answer 1

[chicken vector]

You can store all the information you want into a structure:

nElements = 25;

x = rand(nElements, 1);
y = rand(nElements, 1);
z = rand(nElements, 1);

condunctivity = 50 + 5 * sin(linspace(0, 2*pi, nElements));

DT = delaunay(x, y, z);
mesh = struct;

for element = 1 : nElements
    mesh(j).Indeces = [DT(j,:); DT(j,:); DT(j,:)]
    mesh(j).Points = [x(DT(j,:)); y(DT(j,:)); z(DT(j,:))]
    mesh(j).Conductivity = condunctivity(j)
end

Alternatively you can define a class with a similar approach.

This is usefull to perform operations on the elements.

classdef meshElement
    
    properties
        indeces
        x
        y
        z
        conductivity
    end
    
    methods
        function el = meshElement(DT,row,x,y,z,elementConductivity)
            el.indeces = DT(row,:);
            el.x = el.x(indeces);
            el.y = el.y(indeces);
            el.z = el.z(indeces);
            el.conductivity = elementConductivity;
        end
    end
    
end

Unfortunately the instance of the class returned by delaunayTriangulation is not dynamic, othereise you could just have added the property conductivity to it.