Discrete exterior calculus

In mathematics, the discrete exterior calculus (DEC) is the extension of the exterior calculus to discrete spaces including graphs, finite element meshes, and lately also general polygonal meshes (non-flat and non-convex). DEC methods have proved to be very powerful in improving and analyzing finite element methods: for instance, DEC-based methods allow the use of highly non-uniform meshes to obtain accurate results.

Source: Wikipedia — Discrete exterior calculus (CC BY-SA 4.0)