Plotting FFT when the time steps are not equidistant

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I have a .txt file with time and associated voltages. I am trying to import this in Matlab and look at the frequency response. The problem is the time steps are not equidistant. FFT need equidistant time points. Is there a way I can somehow linspace or extrapolate timesteps to create equidistant points? I have attached the txt file (first column is timestep, second is voltage).

Accepted Answer

Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 5 Jan 2014
Yes. Try interp1() to get uniformly spaced samples.
  3 Comments
Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 6 Jan 2014
Edited: Image Analyst on 6 Jan 2014
The fft is the amplitude. The magnitude of the fft gives the relative amplitude, energy, power in the various frequencies, I think (Wayne King would know for sure). You can extract the first 100 by taking theFFt(1:100). Then pass into abs() to get the magnitude, or take the real part with real(). Not sure what you're looking for. Do you want to plot 100 singe waves, each with its own amplitude? It would probably be best if Wayne answered this question for you because he knows the fine details about what frequencies the elements correspond to and what the values correspond to. But if I answered your original question, can you mark it as "Accepted"?
fendertunes
fendertunes on 6 Jan 2014
I am looking for first 100 harmonic amplitudes, real part.
I will try - FFTResult(1:100) and seeing if that does it.

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More Answers (1)

Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 6 Jan 2014
You should be using a Non-Uniform Discrete Fourier Transform. Mathworks does not provide a routine for this, but you can use a Type I nufft from the File Exchange contribution http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/25135-nufft-nfft-usfft

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