Convolution
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| L and R are vectors; scalars are promoted to one-element vectors. | ||||
| f and g are functions. | ||||
| Z is a vector whose shape is (⍴L)+(⍴R)-1. |
The result is obtained by dragging the reverse of the shorter argument through all positions of the longer argument (as in a moving window) and performing an f.g inner product between the two, including leading and trailing prefixes. For example,
L←1 3 2 1 ⋄ R←2 1 ⋄ L+⍡×R
| 2 | 1 2 | 1 2 | 1 2 | 1 | multiply the rows together |
| 1 3 2 1 | 1 3 2 1 | 1 3 2 1 | 1 3 2 1 | 1 3 2 1 | |
| 2 | 1 6 | 3 4 | 2 2 | 1 | add the products |
L+⍡×R 2 7 7 4 1
Interestingly, this algorithm solves a diverse set of problems such as weighted moving average (used to remove pixelization from a digital image), polynomial multiplication, and overlapping string searching.
Polynomial multiplication is illustrated in the above example using the functions + and ×. Overlapping string searching uses the functions ∧ and = as in
L←'abababc' ⋄ R←'aba'
(0⌈¯1+(⍴L)⌊⍴R)↓L∧⍡=⌽R
1 0 1 0 0 0 0
where we need to drop leading elements of the convolution result to remove the leading prefix comparisons.
