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We introduce a novel approach to describe mesh generation, mesh adaptation, and geometric modeling algorithms relying on changing mesh connectivity using a high-level abstraction. The main motivation is to enable easy customization and development of these algorithms via a declarative specification consisting of a set of per-element invariants, operation scheduling, and attribute transfer for each editing operation. We demonstrate that widely used algorithms editing surfaces and volumes can be compactly expressed with our abstraction, and their implementation within our framework is simple, automatically parallelizable on shared-memory architectures, and with guaranteed satisfaction of the prescribed invariants. These algorithms are readable and easy to customize for specific use cases. We introduce a software library implementing this abstraction and providing automatic shared-memory parallelization. 

Modern fabrication methods have greatly simplified manufacturing of complex free-form shapes at an affordable cost, and opened up new possibilities for improving functionality and customization through automatic optimization, shape optimization in particular. However, most existing shape optimization methods focus on single parts. In this work, we focus on supporting shape optimization for assemblies, more specifically, assemblies that are held together by contact and friction. Examples of which include furniture joints, construction set assemblies, certain types of prosthetic devices and many other. To enable this optimization, we present a framework supporting robust and accurate optimization of a number of important functionals, while enforcing constraints essential for assembly functionality: weight, stress, difficulty of putting the assembly together, and how reliably it stays together. Our framework is based on smoothed formulation of elasticity equations with contact, analytically derived shape derivatives, and robust remeshing to enable large changes of shape, and at the same time, maintain accuracy. We demonstrate the improvements it can achieve for a number of computational and experimental examples.