  The use of local single-pass methods (like, e.g., the Fast Marching method)
has become popular in the solution of some Hamilton-Jacobi equations. The
prototype of these equations is the eikonal equation, for which the methods can
be applied saving CPU time and possibly memory allocation. Then, some natural
questions arise: can local single-pass methods solve any Hamilton-Jacobi
equation? If not, where the limit should be set? This paper tries to answer
these questions. In order to give a complete picture, we present an overview of
some fast methods available in literature and we briefly analyze their main
features. We also introduce some numerical tools and provide several numerical
tests which are intended to exhibit the limitations of the methods. We show
that the construction of a local single-pass method for general Hamilton-Jacobi
equations is very hard, if not impossible. Nevertheless, some special classes
of problems can be actually solved, making local single-pass methods very
useful from the practical point of view.
