WingMesh: A Matlab-Based Application for Finite Element Modeling of Insect Wings

Abstract

The finite element (FE) method is one of the most widely used numerical techniques for the simulation of the mechanical behavior of engineering and biological objects. Although very efficient, the use of the FE method relies on the development of accurate models of the objects under consideration. The development of detailed FE models of often complex-shaped objects, however, can be a time-consuming and error-prone procedure in practice. Hence, many researchers aim to reach a compromise between the simplicity and accuracy of their developed models. In this study, we adapted Distmesh2D, a popular meshing tool, to develop a powerful application for the modeling of geometrically complex objects, such as insect wings. The use of the burning algorithm (BA) in digital image processing (DIP) enabled our method to automatically detect an arbitrary domain and its subdomains in a given image. This algorithm, in combination with the mesh generator Distmesh2D, was used to develop detailed FE models of both planar and out-of-plane (i.e., three-dimensionally corrugated) domains containing discontinuities and consisting of numerous subdomains. To easily implement the method, we developed an application using the Matlab App Designer. This application, called WingMesh, was particularly designed and applied for rapid numerical modeling of complicated insect wings but is also applicable for modeling purposes in the earth, engineering, mathematical, and physical sciences.

The frequency of wing damage in a migrating butterfly

“…Using the image processing software ImageJ v.1.5i (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD), the area of the damaged wing parts was marked and measured as a fraction of the total wing area. A custom Matlab script employing the boundary extraction method from Eshghi et al (2020) and the method for failure calculation in Rajabi et al (2017a,b) was used to measure the frequency of wing failure in this study. All marked images were imported into the Matlab code, and the frequency and location of failure in each wing were automatically extracted.…”

“…A custom Matlab script employing the boundary extraction method from Eshghi et al. (2020) and the method for failure calculation in Rajabi et al. (2017a,b) was used to measure the frequency of wing failure in this study.…”

WingSegment: A Computer Vision‐Based Hybrid Approach for Insect Wing Image Segmentation and 3D Printing

“…In ref. [53], Code S3, Supporting Information, depicts the function for implementing the region-growing method.…”

“…The 3D printable model of the wing is stored as Model S2, Supporting Information. [53] It is essential to highlight that, like WingGram, WingSegment extracts all points along the boundaries of cells, which can lead to many unnecessary points. These plenty of points significantly increase the volume of the macro file, consequently increasing the runtime during the importing process in FreeCAD.…”

“…To comprehensively explore the multifaceted nature of insect wings, automated methods powered by computer vision offer a promising avenue for precise and efficient analysis. In recent years, several techniques have emerged that facilitate convenient 3D scanning, [26] extraction of geometrical information, [27][28][29][30][31] and automated finite element modeling [29,32,33] of both insect bodies and wings. These advancements aim to enhance the precision, speed, and efficiency of analyzing insect wing morphology.Network extraction tool (NET), [34] and network extraction from images (NEFI) [35] are tools designed to extract graphs from images of networks found in diverse domains.…”