Performance of hemisphere algorithm for fast form factor calculation

Development of fast and accurate algorithm of radiative heat transfer simulation is important in terms of efficient thermal design and simulation on diverse engineering area. This paper describes the performance of Hemisphere algorithm which has originally developed as a fast form factor calculation in the field of photorealistic three dimensional computer graphics. We compared perfor. mance of the Hemisphere algorithm with two conventional methods which are frequently used inthe field of radiative heat transfer simulation. As a result, the Hemisphere algorithm is significant faster than the conventional methods if one can accept an absolute error of 1.0 X 10^-5. In addition, the result indicates that the Hemisphere algorithm possibly suit for try and error process of large-scale model simulation due to its tolerable form factor distribution.