Redistancing by flow of time dependent eikonal equation

Construction of signed distance to a given interface is a topic of special interest to level set methods. There are currently, however, few algorithms that can efficiently produce highly accurate solutions. We introduce an algorithm for constructing an approximate signed distance function through manipulation of values calculated from flow of time dependent eikonal equations. We provide operation counts and experimental results to show that this algorithm can efficiently generate solutions with a high order of accuracy. Comparison with the standard level set reinitialization algorithm shows ours is superior in terms of predictability and local construction, which, for example, are critical in local level set methods. We further apply the same ideas to extension of values off interfaces. Together, our proposed approaches can be used to advance the level set method for fast and accurate computations of the latest scientific problems. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.