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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1996 Feb 20;93(4):1591–1595. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.4.1591

A fast marching level set method for monotonically advancing fronts.

J A Sethian 1
PMCID: PMC39986  PMID: 11607632

Abstract

A fast marching level set method is presented for monotonically advancing fronts, which leads to an extremely fast scheme for solving the Eikonal equation. Level set methods are numerical techniques for computing the position of propagating fronts. They rely on an initial value partial differential equation for a propagating level set function and use techniques borrowed from hyperbolic conservation laws. Topological changes, corner and cusp development, and accurate determination of geometric properties such as curvature and normal direction are naturally obtained in this setting. This paper describes a particular case of such methods for interfaces whose speed depends only on local position. The technique works by coupling work on entropy conditions for interface motion, the theory of viscosity solutions for Hamilton-Jacobi equations, and fast adaptive narrow band level set methods. The technique is applicable to a variety of problems, including shape-from-shading problems, lithographic development calculations in microchip manufacturing, and arrival time problems in control theory.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Malladi R., Sethian J. A. Image processing via level set curvature flow. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1995 Jul 18;92(15):7046–7050. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.15.7046. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

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