All necessary parameters are specified globally on the Mesh > Global Mesh Setup > Prism Meshing Parameters DEZ. A full description is contained at Prism Meshing Parameters in the Help manual.

Certain parameters can then be adjusted on a part-by-part or entity-by-entity basis using Part Mesh Setup, Surface Mesh Setup and Curve Mesh Setup. For instance, you can specify 3 prism layers with a growth rate of 1.2 globally, but set 5 layers on a certain part. Part settings override global settings and entity (surface or curve) settings override part settings. Between entities the smaller size overrides the larger. Setting a specific parameter on a single entity within a part or between parts is handled intelligently. For example, if you set a local parameter, such as height, on a single curve entity, the prism mesher will interpolate that parameter smoothly across the surface between curves.

You may also select volume parts for prism growth. If no volume parts are selected, ICEM CFD assumes that you want to grow prisms into all volumes bordering the prism surfaces. If you select specific volume parts, then prism layers will be grown into only those volumes.

The height and direction of the prism layer extrusion are calculated on an element-by-element basis and may vary due to global or local controls, or for improved quality. You may choose to set the initial height, number of layers, and growth ratio, which are then used to determine the last layer height and prisms total height (unless limited by prism height limit factor). Or you may prefer to set only the number of layers and growth ratio, which then allows Prism to adjust the initial height and locally optimize the volume transition between the prisms and tetras. If you are concerned about Y+, you can then adjust the first-cell height using Edit Mesh > Split Mesh > Split Prisms.

Before the first layer is created and after the last layer is created, surface and/or volume smoothing is done according to the global settings and selected process. The layers are grown one at a time with only directional smoothing applied before extruding each layer. This continues until all the requested layers are grown. The smoothing is the most time-consuming operation, so for simple configurations, it may be best to turn off all smoothing and grow all the layers one at a time. This enables you to take advantage of the variable height feature.