Discrete sine transform

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 (since the Fourier transform of a real and odd function is imaginary and odd), where in some variants the input and/or output data are shifted by half a sample.

The DST is related to the discrete cosine transform (DCT), which is equivalent to a DFT of real and even functions. See the DCT article for a general discussion of how the boundary conditions relate the various DCT and DST types. Generally, the DST is derived from the DCT by replacing the Neumann condition at x=0 with a Dirichlet condition. Both the DCT and the DST were described by Nasir Ahmed, T. Natarajan, and K.R. Rao in 1974. The type-I DST (DST-I) was later described by Anil K. Jain in 1976, and the type-II DST (DST-II) was then described by H.B. Kekra and J.K. Solanka in 1978.

From the perspective of algebraic signal processing, both the DST and the DCT arise as spectral transforms associated with the dihedral group, differing only in the choice of boundary conditions: the DCT corresponds to symmetric (even, Neumann) boundaries, while the DST corresponds to antisymmetric (odd, Dirichlet) boundaries. Together, they form a complete family of spectral transforms for the dihedral group, just as the DFT is the spectral transform for the cyclic group with periodic boundary conditions.