Modulated complex lapped transform

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The modulated complex lapped transform (MCLT) is a lapped transform, similar to the modified discrete cosine transform, that explicitly represents the phase (complex values) of the signal.

In signal processing, a lapped transform is a type of linear discrete block transformation where the basis functions of the transformation overlap the block boundaries, yet the number of coefficients overall resulting from a series of overlapping block transforms remains the same as if a non-overlapping block transform had been used.

The modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) is a lapped transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform (DCT-IV), with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset, where subsequent blocks are overlapped so that the last half of one block coincides with the first half of the next block. This overlapping, in addition to the energy-compaction qualities of the DCT, makes the MDCT especially attractive for signal compression applications, since it helps to avoid artifacts stemming from the block boundaries. As a result of these advantages, the MDCT is employed in most modern lossy audio formats, including MP3, AC-3, Vorbis, Windows Media Audio, ATRAC, Cook, AAC, Opus, and LDAC.

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Fast Fourier transform O(n logn) divide and conquer algorithm to calculate the discrete Fourier transforms

A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain to a representation in the frequency domain and vice versa. The DFT is obtained by decomposing a sequence of values into components of different frequencies. This operation is useful in many fields, but computing it directly from the definition is often too slow to be practical. An FFT rapidly computes such transformations by factorizing the DFT matrix into a product of sparse factors. As a result, it manages to reduce the complexity of computing the DFT from , which arises if one simply applies the definition of DFT, to , where is the data size. The difference in speed can be enormous, especially for long data sets where N may be in the thousands or millions. In the presence of round-off error, many FFT algorithms are much more accurate than evaluating the DFT definition directly. There are many different FFT algorithms based on a wide range of published theories, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number theory.

Fourier analysis Branch of mathematics regarding periodic and continuous signals

In mathematics, Fourier analysis is the study of the way general functions may be represented or approximated by sums of simpler trigonometric functions. Fourier analysis grew from the study of Fourier series, and is named after Joseph Fourier, who showed that representing a function as a sum of trigonometric functions greatly simplifies the study of heat transfer.

In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with a modulating signal that typically contains information to be transmitted. Most radio systems in the 20th century used frequency modulation (FM) or amplitude modulation (AM) for radio broadcast.

Signal processing models and analyzes data representations of physical events

Signal processing is a subfield of mathematics, information and electrical engineering that concerns the analysis, synthesis, and modification of signals, which are broadly defined as functions conveying "information about the behavior or attributes of some phenomenon", such as sound, images, and biological measurements. For example, signal processing techniques are used to improve signal transmission fidelity, storage efficiency, and subjective quality, and to emphasize or detect components of interest in a measured signal.

Image compression Reduction of image size to save storage and transmission costs

Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior results compared with generic data compression methods which are used for other digital data.

Transform coding is a type of data compression for "natural" data like audio signals or photographic images. The transformation is typically lossless on its own but is used to enable better quantization, which then results in a lower quality copy of the original input.

A discrete cosine transform (DCT) expresses a finite sequence of data points in terms of a sum of cosine functions oscillating at different frequencies. DCTs are important to numerous applications in science and engineering, from lossy compression of audio and images, to spectral methods for the numerical solution of partial differential equations. The use of cosine rather than sine functions is critical for compression, since it turns out that fewer cosine functions are needed to approximate a typical signal, whereas for differential equations the cosines express a particular choice of boundary conditions.

In mathematics, the discrete sine transform (DST) is a Fourier-related transform similar to the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), but using a purely real matrix. It is equivalent to the imaginary parts of a DFT of roughly twice the length, operating on real data with odd symmetry, where in some variants the input and/or output data are shifted by half a sample.

Signal varying physical quantity that conveys information

In communication systems, signal processing, and electrical engineering, a signal is a function that "conveys information about the behavior or attributes of some phenomenon". In its most common usage, in electronics and telecommunication, this is a time varying voltage, current or electromagnetic wave used to carry information. A signal may also be defined as an "observable change in a quantifiable entity". In the physical world, any quantity exhibiting variation in time or variation in space is potentially a signal that might provide information on the status of a physical system, or convey a message between observers, among other possibilities. The IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing states that the term "signal" includes audio, video, speech, image, communication, geophysical, sonar, radar, medical and musical signals. In a later effort of redefining a signal, anything that is only a function of space, such as an image, is excluded from the category of signals. Also, it is stated that a signal may or may not contain any information.

Frequency domain signal representation

In electronics, control systems engineering, and statistics, the frequency domain refers to the analysis of mathematical functions or signals with respect to frequency, rather than time. Put simply, a time-domain graph shows how a signal changes over time, whereas a frequency-domain graph shows how much of the signal lies within each given frequency band over a range of frequencies. A frequency-domain representation can also include information on the phase shift that must be applied to each sinusoid in order to be able to recombine the frequency components to recover the original time signal.

Welch's method, named after P.D. Welch, is an approach for spectral density estimation. It is used in physics, engineering, and applied mathematics for estimating the power of a signal at different frequencies. The method is based on the concept of using periodogram spectrum estimates, which are the result of converting a signal from the time domain to the frequency domain. Welch's method is an improvement on the standard periodogram spectrum estimating method and on Bartlett's method, in that it reduces noise in the estimated power spectra in exchange for reducing the frequency resolution. Due to the noise caused by imperfect and finite data, the noise reduction from Welch's method is often desired.

K. R. Rao Professor at UTA

K. R. Rao is a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington . He is credited with the co-invention of discrete cosine transform (DCT), along with N. Ahmed and T. Natarajan due to their landmark publication, N. Ahmed, T. Natarajan, and K. R. Rao, "Discrete Cosine Transform", IEEE Transactions on Computers, 90–93, Jan 1974.

In electronics and telecommunications, pulse shaping is the process of changing the waveform of transmitted pulses. Its purpose is to make the transmitted signal better suited to its purpose or the communication channel, typically by limiting the effective bandwidth of the transmission. By filtering the transmitted pulses this way, the intersymbol interference caused by the channel can be kept in control. In RF communication, pulse shaping is essential for making the signal fit in its frequency band.

In mathematics, symmetric convolution is a special subset of convolution operations in which the convolution kernel is symmetric across its zero point. Many common convolution-based processes such as Gaussian blur and taking the derivative of a signal in frequency-space are symmetric and this property can be exploited to make these convolutions easier to evaluate.

N. Ahmed Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer and Engineering at University of New Mexico (UNM)

Nasir Ahmed is a Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer and Engineering at University of New Mexico (UNM). He is best known for the development of the discrete cosine transform (DCT), which is a data compression transformation.

Daala is a video coding format under development by the Xiph.Org Foundation under the lead of Timothy B. Terriberry mainly sponsored by the Mozilla Corporation. Like Theora and Opus, Daala is available free of any royalties and its reference implementation is being developed as free and open-source software.

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