Notes on Big Ray Tracing

✍ Scribed by R.H Rietdijk

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 451 KB
• Volume: 148
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9991
• DOI: 10.1006/jcph.1998.6113

✦ Synopsis

It is well known that eikonal solvers provide a fast and accurate way to compute traveltimes in complex media. However, they only give solutions corresponding to first arrivals. In (J. Comput. Phys. 128, 463 (1996)), J. D. Benamou presents an algorithm which gives a multivalued traveltime solution on the whole domain considered, by defining subdomains in this domain in such a way that within these subdomains the traveltime is single-valued and can be found by an eikonal solver restricted to the subdomain. The subdomains may overlap, but together they constitute the whole domain. The solution on the whole domain is then given by the combination of the solutions on the subdomains. An approximate realisation of these subdomains, called big rays, is given. In the present paper we describe some problems the algorithm shows and give an explanation of their origin. We conclude that the method cannot be used in the presence of caustics.