[Gmsh] 3D meshing from stl surface fails

[Alexander Opitz]

Hi 

First many thanks for this great tool!
But now I am stuck with the following problem. I want to create a 3D volume mesh from an imported stl surface. The surface doesn't self-intersect but the meshing was not successful. I tried different meshing algorithms but none did succeed. Now my question is what the failure in my stl surface could be that ceases gmsh from successful meshing.

I got the following error messages: 

Info    : Started on Thu Jul 22 11:56:36 2010

Info    : Reading 'Test.geo'

Info    : Reading 'gm_final.fc3.120k.u2.stl'

Info    : 308300 facets in solid 0

Info    : Read 'gm_final.fc3.120k.u2.stl'

Info    : Read 'Test.geo'

Info    : Meshing 1D...

Info    : Mesh 1D complete (0 s)

Info    : Meshing 2D...

Info    : Mesh 2D complete (0 s)

Info    : Meshing 3D...

Info    : Meshing volume 3 (Frontal)

Info    : Region 3 Face 1, 2 intersect

Info    : CalcLocalH: 154150 Points 0 Elements 308300 Surface Elements 

Info    : Check subdomain 1 / 1 

Info    : 308300 open elements 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 18830 - 35775 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 35775 - 41184 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 39024 - 39025 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 39025 - 39103 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 39024 - 41967 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 39103 - 41967 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 43936 - 44298 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 43936 - 46685 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 44298 - 91790 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 46685 - 91790 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 18830 - 153860 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Edge 41184 - 153860 multiple times in surface mesh 

Error   : ERROR: Surface mesh not consistent 

Error   : ERROR: Stop meshing since surface mesh not consistent 

Info    : Mesh 3D complete (6.11 s)

Info    : 154150 vertices 308300 elements


I am running Gmsh Version 2.4.2 on 64 bit Linux Ubuntu.

Any help is appreciated.

Many thanks!

Alex