halfMesh

A simple and flexible half‐edge data structure for triangular meshes, with built‐in support for per‐entity properties and multiple I/O formats.

Features

• Half‐Edge Representation for efficient adjacency and traversal
• JSON/BSON‐Backed Property Store for vertices, edges, and faces
• Custom .bm Format (BSON) for full mesh+property serialization
• STL Support: Read & write both ASCII and binary STL
• Export: OBJ, GMSH (v2), VTK

Input / Output Capabilities

| Format | Read | Write | Notes | |-------------------------------|:----:|:-----:|------------------------------------------------------------| | OBJ (Triangles only) | No | Yes | Export only; OBJ reading has been removed | | GMSH (v2, Triangles only) | Yes | Yes | Version 2, triangular elements only | | STL (ASCII & Binary) | Yes | Yes | Supports both ASCII and binary STL | | VTK (Triangles only) | No | Yes | Export only, triangular faces | | BM (BSON) | Yes | Yes | Custom mesh+properties format |

Dependencies

• C++17 (or later)
• nlohmann/json for JSON/BSON serialization and property storage (Version 3.12.0)
• Eigen for vector arithmetic and basic linear algebra operations (Version 3.4.0)

All dependencies are self contained in the repository and user does not need to install anything.

Usage

#include "mesh.hpp"

int main() {
    halfMesh::triMesh mesh;

    // Add vertices
    auto v1 = mesh.add_vertex(0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
    auto v2 = mesh.add_vertex(1.0, 0.0, 0.0);
    auto v3 = mesh.add_vertex(0.0, 1.0, 0.0);

    // Build one triangle and finalize connectivity
    mesh.add_face(v1, v2, v3);
    mesh.complete_mesh();

    // Export to various formats
    mesh.save("mesh.stl");

    return 0;
}

Dependencies

C++17

License

MIT

Notes

• Designed to be lightweight and STL‐only; future enhancements may add optional dependencies.
• Contributions welcome! Feel free to open issues or pull requests. More than happy to add it here in future.
• If you have doubts, contact me over email halfmesh@kaditham.meshing.engineer