Computation of Hyperbolic Structures in Knot Theory

This chapter from the upcoming Handbook of Knot Theory (eds. Menasco and Thistlethwaite) shows how to construct hyperbolic structures on link complements and perform hyperbolic Dehn filling. Along with a new elementary exposition of the standard ideas from Thurston’s work, the article includes never-before-published explanations of SnapPea’s algorithms for triangulating a link complement efficiently and for converging quickly to the hyperbolic structure while avoiding singularities in the parameter space.