Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2008
Finite Difference and Finite Element algorithms for the solution of the radiative transfer equationas required for the modeling of modern high quality observations are briefly describedand discussed. It is emphasized that in the Finite Element approach there is the possibility to obtain an a-posteriori error estimator, which allows to locally refine the grid and in this way to obtain numerical solutions that do not differfrom the (unknown) analytical solutions by more than a prescribed tolerance.