Where to center the kernel when using FFTW for image convolution?

Question

I am trying to use FFTW for image convolution.

At first just to test if the system is working properly, I performed the fft, then the inverse fft, and could get the exact same image returned.

Then a small step forward, I used the identity kernel(i.e., kernel[0][0] = 1 whereas all the other components equal 0). I took the component-wise product between the image and kernel(both in the frequency domain), then did the inverse fft. Theoretically I should be able to get the identical image back. But the result I got is very not even close to the original image. I am suspecting this has something to do with where I center my kernel before I fft it into frequency domain(since I put the "1" at kernel[0][0], it basically means that I centered the positive part at the top left). Could anyone enlighten me about what goes wrong here?

Answer 1

For each dimension, the indexes of samples should be from -n/2 ... 0 ... n/2 -1, so if the dimension is odd, center around the middle. If the dimension is even, center so that before the new 0 you have one sample more than after the new 0.

E.g. -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 for a width/height of 8 or -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 for a width/height of 7.

The FFT is relative to the middle, in its scale there are negative points.
In the memory the points are 0...n-1, but the FFT treats them as -ceil(n/2)...floor(n/2), where 0 is -ceil(n/2) and n-1 is floor(n/2)

The identity matrix is a matrix of zeros with 1 in the 0,0 location (the center - according to above numbering). (In the spatial domain.)

In the frequency domain the identity matrix should be a constant (all real values 1 or 1/(N*M) and all imaginary values 0).

If you do not receive this result, then the identify matrix might need padding differently (to the left and down instead of around all sides) - this may depend on the FFT implementation.

Center each dimension separately (this is an index centering, no change in actual memory).

You will probably need to pad the image (after centering) to a whole power of 2 in each dimension (2^n * 2^m where n doesn't have to equal m).

Pad relative to FFT's 0,0 location (to center, not corner) by copying existing pixels into a new larger image, using center-based-indexes in both source and destination images (e.g. (0,0) to (0,0), (0,1) to (0,1), (1,-2) to (1,-2))

Assuming your FFT uses regular floating point cells and not complex cells, the complex image has to be of size 2*ceil(2/n) * 2*ceil(2/m) even if you don't need a whole power of 2 (since it has half the samples, but the samples are complex).

If your image has more than one color channel, you will first have to reshape it, so that the channel are the most significant in the sub-pixel ordering, instead of the least significant. You can reshape and pad in one go to save time and space.

Don't forget the FFTSHIFT after the IFFT. (To swap the quadrants.)
The result of the IFFT is 0...n-1. You have to take pixels floor(n/2)+1..n-1 and move them before 0...floor(n/2).
This is done by copying pixels to a new image, copying floor(n/2)+1 to memory-location 0, floor(n/2)+2 to memory-location 1, ..., n-1 to memory-location floor(n/2), then 0 to memory-location ceil(n/2), 1 to memory-location ceil(n/2)+1, ..., floor(n/2) to memory-location n-1.

When you multiply in the frequency domain, remember that the samples are complex (one cell real then one cell imaginary) so you have to use a complex multiplication.

The result might need dividing by N^2*M^2 where N is the size of n after padding (and likewise for M and m). - You can tell this by (a. looking at the frequency domain's values of the identity matrix, b. comparing result to input.)