From octave-sources-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Tue Aug  3 06:46:18 1999
Subject: FFTW
From: Francesco Potorti` <F dot Potorti at cnuce dot cnr dot it>
To: Octave source list <octave-sources at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 13:45:57 +0200 (CEST)

FFTW (http://www.fftw.org/) is a routine for computing the Fourier
transform which was recently awarded the Wilkinson Prize For Numerical
Software.  Here is the beginning of their home page:

Introduction

   FFTW is  a C  subroutine library for  computing the  Discrete Fourier
   Transform (DFT) in  one or more dimensions, of  both real and complex
   data, and  of arbitrary  input size. We  believe that FFTW,  which is
   free  software, should  become the  FFT  library of  choice for  most
   applications. Our benchmarks, performed on on a variety of platforms,
   show that FFTW's  performance is typically superior to  that of other
   publicly  available  FFT software.  Moreover,  FFTW's performance  is
   portable: the program will perform well on most architectures without
   modification.

   It is difficult to summarize in a few words all the complexities that
   arise when testing many programs, and there is no "best" or "fastest"
   program. However, FFTW appears to  be the fastest program most of the
   time,  especially  in the  multi-dimensional  and real-complex  cases
   (Kasparov is the best chess player  in the world even though he loses
   some games).  Hence the name,  "FFTW," which stands for  the somewhat
   whimsical title  of "Fastest Fourier  Transform in the  West." Please
   visit  the benchFFT  home page  for a  more extensive  survey  of the
   results.

   The FFTW package was developed at MIT by Matteo Frigo and Steven
   G. Johnson.