Abstract
We present a computational approach to general hyperelliptic Riemann surfaces in Weierstrass normal form. The surface is given by a list of the branch points, the coefficients of the defining polynomial or a system of cuts for the curve. A canonical basis of the homology is introduced algorithmically for this curve. The periods of the holomorphic differentials and the Abel map are computed with the Clenshaw-Curtis method to achieve spectral accuracy. The code can handle almost degenerate Riemann surfaces. This work generalizes previous work on real hyperelliptic surfaces with prescribed cuts to arbitrary hyperelliptic surfaces. As an example, solutions to the sine-Gordon equation in terms of multi-dimensional theta functions are studied, also in the solitonic limit of these solutions.