meshface.m

function faces=meshface(elem,varargin)
%
% faces=meshface(elem,opt)
%
% return all faces in a surface or volumetric mesh
%
% author: Qianqian Fang, <q.fang at neu.edu>
% date: 2011/02/26
%
% input:
%    elem:  element table of a mesh (support N-d space element)
%    opt: optional input, giving the additional options. If opt
%         is a struct, it can have the following field:
%       opt.nodeorder: if 1, assuming the elem node indices is in CCW 
%                      orientation; 0 use nchoosek() output to order faces
%         you can replace opt by a series of ('param', value) pairs.
%
% output:
%    face:  face list; each row is an face, specified by the starting and
%           ending node indices, the total face number is
%           size(elem,1) x nchoosek(size(elem,2),2). All faces are ordered
%           by looping through each element first. 
%
% -- this function is part of iso2mesh toolbox (http://iso2mesh.sf.net)
%

dim=size(elem);
faceid=nchoosek(1:dim(2),3);
len=size(faceid,1);
faces=zeros(dim(1)*len,3);
for i=0:len-1
    faces((i*dim(1)+1):((i+1)*dim(1)),:)=[elem(:,faceid(i+1,1)) elem(:,faceid(i+1,2)) elem(:,faceid(i+1,3)) ];
end