Package for level-set-based shape optimisation

[Daniel Kraft]

Hi all!

I'm working on shape optimisation in a level-set framework.  Some parts
of my code are already published in the Octave "level-set" package.  I
would now like to also polish and publish some more, namely code related
to the actual optimisation.

In particular, I'm thinking about the following parts:

1) High-level routines that handle line searches and run a descent
method on shapes described by level sets.

2) Related utilities for (optionally) plotting status information along
the descent and also recording / replaying descents.  (Useful for
running the computation on a server or over night and then interpreting
the results interactively.)

3) Lower-level supplemental routines that compute search directions in
various ways (mostly as "steepest descent").  They are 2D specific and
require a custom-made FEM solver for simple elliptic equations.

Of course, the code is general enough to handle different actual
problems.  (I'm using it both for PDE-constrained shape optimisation and
for a special image segmentation method.)

I'm currently thinking about the best ways for publishing these.  Of
course, it is ultimately for me to decide about that (particularly as
the maintainer of the level-set package), but I would like to get
community feedback if possible.  I see the following variants:

a) Include at least 1) and 2) as new parts in the level-set package.
IMHO, these parts are general enough to loosely fit into the existing
package.  On the other hand, it might be better to fully keep out any
"optimisation" related stuff from the level-set package and focus it
only on basic geometrical routines with level-sets.

b) Ask for inclusion of the general parts into the "optim" package.
This seems an even worse fit and not like the best idea.

c) Create a new package for shape optimisation with my code, which
depends on level-set.  Seems like a good idea.  However, there exists a
vast range of methods employed in shape optimisation.  So I'm not sure
if it is "ok" to publish a "shape optimisation" package which basically
just employs the particular methods I use and develop.

d) Publish a specific package for shape optimisation with the level-set
method.  Would that still be of interest to Octave Forge?  If not, then
I can, of course, also publish it separately (but still as free software).

What do you think?  Any feedback is very welcome!  I would like to make
my code of the most use to the research community and the users of Octave.

Yours,
Daniel

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