13.9 Summary

This chapter started with an outline of the level set method and its advantages and disadvantages compared to the two main other methods for tracking surface evolution. After the numeric issues two methods for improving accuracy and increasing speed were introduced. First a surface coarsening algorithm significantly reduces the size of the radiosity matrix in typical simulations and thus ensures significant speed ups without sacrificing accuracy. Second the combined algorithm for narrow banding and extending the speed function provides a rigorous solution to determining the current narrow band and extending the speed function from the values at the surface.

Hence this chapter provides the basis for the applications in the following chapters, where the ELSA simulator is applied to tracking surface evolution in several topography simulation problems posed by industrial partners.