Why use fftshift(fft(fftshift(x))) in Matlab instead of fft(x)?

Explain why we use fftshift(fft(fftshift(x))) in Matlab instead of fft(x)

Description

Explain why we use fftshift(fft(fftshift(x))) in Matlab instead of fft(x). An example is given. The example and Matlab codes are partially copied from Daniele Disco ‘s work in "A guide to the Fast Fourier Transform, 2nd Edition".

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.6 (R2008a)

[Kan Wu]

 

[Matt Fetterman]

Very interesting!

[Shalin Mehta]

There is a problem with above recipe. It fails when you have sequence of odd length. Correct recipe is:
fftshift(fft(ifftshift(sig))) or fftshift(ifft(ifftshift(spectrum))).

A description of this can be found on my submission on fftshift, ifftshift.

To observe that above is true, run the following code with fftshift and ifftshift on inner call for computing Xfinal.
-------------------------
Bx = 50;
A = sqrt(log(2))/(2*pi*Bx);
fs = 500; %sampling frequency
dt = 1/fs; %time step
T=1; %total time window
t = -T/2:dt:T/2; %time grids
df = 1/T; %freq step
Fmax = 1/2/dt; %freq window
f=-Fmax:df:Fmax; %freq grids, not used in our examples, could be used by plot(f, X)

x = exp(-t.^2/(2*A^2));
Xan = A*sqrt(2*pi)*exp(-2*pi^2*f.^2*A^2); %X(f), analytical Fourier transform of x(t), real
Xfft = dt * fft(x); %directly using fft()
Xfftshift = dt * fft(fftshift(x)); %using fftshift() before fft()
Xfinal = dt * fftshift(fft(ifftshift(x))); %identical with analytical X(f), also note dt
subplot(211); plot(f,Xan,f,real(Xfinal),'--');
subplot(212); plot(f,imag(Xfinal));

[Kan Wu]

To Mehta, yes you r right. ifftshift is used for sequence with odd length. Thank you for the correction!

[Shalin Mehta]

You're welcome. ifftshift is the same as fftshift for even length sequence, but different for odd length. So if one uses fftshift(fft(ifftshift(...))) things work well. By the way, scaling by dt and df to correct for scaling introduced by FFT algorithm is neat trick.

[zhang lanqing]

thanl you very much !