Seventeen criteria for evaluating Jacobian-based optimization metrics

There are far too many quality and optimization metrics in the meshing literature than are needed. The situation with Target Matrix Optimization Paradigm (TMOP) is the same, because it is all too easy to invent new metrics. How does one go about deciding which metrics to keep and which to discard, because they are defective? A set of 17 criteria for evaluating candidate mesh optimization metrics is developed and applied to about eighty candidates to identify the most reliable metrics. About a dozen of the candidates are able to satisfy all 17 of the criteria.