New algorithms for computing the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) spectra along different directions are derived and implemented. For computing the DFT spectrum along any given direction (containing N DFT frequencies), a new algorithm is presented that requires N(N-1) additions and a single 1-D FFT. As expected, for a single direction, the directional FFT algorithm is significantly faster than standard 2-D FFT algorithms that compute the entire spectrum (all results are compared against FFTWand FFTPACK). A scalable extension of the unidirectional algorithm for computing the entire DFT spectrum is also derived and implemented. The three most promising features of the new algorithm are that: (i) computation scales nearly linearly with the number of DFT frequencies computed, (ii) the algorithm uses a reduced number of multiplications (yet uses more additions), and (iii) it is more accurate.
Marios S. Pattichis, Ruhai Zhou, Balaji Raman 0002