Meshes - Interactive Meshing

A mesh node's features and options can be applied automatically when the "Mesh interactive" mode is enabled (which is not the case by default). This means that you do not have to rebuild the entire mesh to see the changes you have made, and the new mesh is updated in RealFlow's viewport without having to press a button. The live mesh option can be subdivided into two categories:

1. Field-based parameters. When a mesh is built, a so-called field is created to describe the fluid's surface. This is the most time-consuming part of the meshing process. In a second step, the field is used to extract the polygon mesh, and that is a very fast procedure. The field-based settings include parameters like “Polygon size”, “Weight normalization”, and “Radius”. “Clipping” operations are also part of this category. When you change one of these parameters it will take a long time to get a result, because the field has to be recreated.
2. Polygon-based features. In this case, only the polygons are updated, but the underlying field is not affected. Changes on these parameters are therefore applied very fast. Parameters of the second category are “Filters” and “Optimization”. Hybrido meshes also include the “Boundaries” and “Displacement” parameter sets.

 To make use of this feature, a short workflow is necessary:

• Go to the frame of interest and enable Mesh shelf > Mesh interactive mode
• A mesh will be created automatically.
• Tweak your settings with live updates.
• Confirm these adjustments by creating a mesh with the “Build mesh” command.
• Mesh the entire sequence with Mesh shelf > Build Mesh Sequence

When a mesh is selected in the viewport it appears green. This bright color sometimes makes it difficult to evaluate the mesh's quality or subtle changes. For this reason it is possible to deactivate highlighting under

View > Show > Selection highlighting