A fast algorithm of shortest path ray tracing
一种最短路径射线追踪的快速算法

To get accurate results with the shortest path ray tracing,it is usually necessary to represent the model with dense grids and nodes,and to increase ray directions emanating from a secondary source,or to improve the results with other algorithms.These measures bring forth many additional computations.This paper presents a fast algorithm with more efficient management of wavefront nodes and more efficient computation of the propagation of a secondary source than the traditional method.In this method,the bucket sort is applied to manage wavefront nodes.It is more efficient than the heap sort used in the traditional method.In addition,Snell's law is applied,and traveltimes of waves from neighboring nodes are considered at the same time to determine the effective propagation area of the current secondary source.Thus,many unnecessary propagation directions are excluded.Numerical tests show that the speed of the fast algorithm is about several to more than ten times of that of the traditional method.