Viscosity Solutions and Convergence of Monotone Schemes for Synthetic Aperture Radar Shape-from-Shading Equations with Discontinuous Intensities (Q4258495)

This paper seems to be an extended (and apparently older) version of the communication [\textit{D. Ostrov}, ISMN, Int. Ser. Numer. Math. 130, 767-772 (1999; Zbl 0932.35040)]\ in which not only the detailed proofs of the theorems are given but also the physical background and the derivation of the SAR SFS (Synthetic Aperture Radar Shape-From-Shading) equation: \[ u_r -I(y,r)\sqrt{.5+\sqrt{.25+(1+u_y^2)/I(y,r)^2}}=0, \quad u(y,R_1)\equiv u_0(y), \quad y\in \mathbb{R}, \;r\in (R_1,R_2),\tag{1} \] and some examples and numerical results are presented. In the case the ``intensity function'' \(I\) is discontinuous the author uses the semicontinuous functions: \(\overline I\), \(\underline I\) and the Lipschitzian ``approximants'' \(I^\varepsilon\), \(I_\varepsilon\), \(\varepsilon >0\) defined by: \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} \overline I(x)&:=\limsup_{\xi \to x} I(\xi),\qquad& \underline I(x)&:=\liminf_{\xi \to x} I(\xi), \\ I^\varepsilon (x)&:=\sup_{\xi}[\overline I(\xi)-|x-\xi|/\varepsilon],\qquad& I_\varepsilon (x)&:=\inf_{\xi}[\underline I(\xi)+|x-\xi|/\varepsilon],\end{alignedat} \] which, when introduced in (1) produce unique viscosity (Lipschitzian) solutions \(u^\varepsilon\), \(u_\varepsilon\), respectively, which are proved to be monotonic as \( \varepsilon \to 0+\) and therefore convergent to \(\overline u\), \(\underline u,\) taken as upper and, respectively, lower (generalized) solutions. The author gives an example showing that his ``generalized solution'' \(u= \overline u= \underline u\) may not coincide with Ishii's viscosity solution of equations defined by discontinuous Hamiltonians in [\textit{H. Ishii}, Bull. Fac. Sci. Engrg., Chuo Univ. 28, 33-77 (1985)].