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After this previous question, we want to perform a numerical approximation to the singular value decomposition $\mathbf A=\mathbf U\mathbf \Sigma\mathbf V^\top$. But we can operate only with matrix individual elements such as $a_{i,j}$ , $u_{n,k}$ , $v_{m,\ell}$ etc. (like we do in most programming languages). What shall be our step by step algorithm for performing SVD?

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3 Answers 3

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Hmm, I do not quite understand what you mean with "step-by-step algorithm", so this answer might be useless, anyway.

Before the much complicated, elaborated (and also optimized) approaches to SVD, as detailed in @lhf's wikipedia link, there is a conceptual simple method: jacobi-rotation to principal-components-position along rows and the along columns (which of course must be iterated until accepted convergence like all other methods)

That rotations can be implemented very easily and are in general numerically stable: a pair of rows are rotated by an angle for which the criterion can agayin easily be determined.(requiring not more that the sums of squares of the current a_i's and a_j's under iteration). Having accumulated the rotation-criteria in the then unitary ("rotation") matrix U the same process is performed over the columns, giving another rotationmatrix V. (If the original matrix M is symmetric, U and V are transposes/inverses of each other and we have the diagonalization of M).

With current speed of computers, one can handle matrices of some dozen rows/columns in a second; a 80x100 -matrix M needed 2 seconds to be computed. Using the implementation in my MatMate-program I just formulate:

n,m = 80,100
M = randomn(n,m)  // generate a random matrix of n rows, m columns

U = gettrans(M ',"pca") '   // get the row-rotation matrix for rowwise PC-position
V = gettrans(M ,"pca")      // get the col-rotation matrix for colwise PC-position

D = U * M * V               // get the quasidiagonal matrix D

This needed at most two seconds(guessed).

The "gettrans"-procedure does simply pairwise rotations of all rows (resp cols) and iterates until convergence, keeping track of the rotations in a matrix T which is then returned as result of the procedure.

As said: the procedure is in no way optimal in time and space consumption; the time consumption is at least cubic with the size; with matrix-size of 200x100 I needed one minute for the same computation using a randommatrix M, so it advised to use it only for such small matrices. And for instance may not converge fast if the rowwise or columnwise PC-positions are not unique because of equality of eigenvalues in M*M' or M'*M (the apostrophe meaning transposition) , and thus should be modified and sophisticated to cover also the "unfriendly" cases. But it is -in my view- conceptionally straightforward and very simple to implement as a starter (and also numerically stable), so is -again in my view- a good example for the self-study of the method.

[Update:] A time-saving precondition as mentioned in the first of the two papers linked by @J.M. (here again) can easily be inserted into the MatMate-procedure:

r,c = 100,200
M = randomn(r,c)  // generate a random matrix of n rows, m columns

   // precondition
Q = gettrans(M, "drei")    // get the col-rotation matrix for lower-triangular position
                           // this is also QR-decomposition
M1 = (M*Q) [1..r.1..r]     // r is the upper-limit for the rank;
                           // for SVD use submatrix only

      // SVD on the preconditioned matrix
U = gettrans(M1 ,"pca")     // get the col-rotation matrix for colwise PC-position
V = gettrans(M1' ,"pca")'   // get the row-rotation matrix for rowwise PC-position

D = V * M1 * U               // get the quasidiagonal matrix D of lower rank

// if the full solution for the roation-matrices is needed, proceed as follows:
// to get the full svd, matrices Q and U must be combined, but are of different size,
// so U must be extended and the new diagonal-elements must be set to 1
U1 = einh(c)                 // 200x200-unit-matrix
U1[1..r,1..r] = U            // insert 100x100-rotation-matrix
U  = Q*U1                    // get full 200x200 SVD-rotation matrix 

Time without preconditioning: ~ 60 secs
Time with preconditioning: ~ 8 secs


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Re: Jacobi, there are in fact two ways to do Jacobi for the purposes of computing the SVD. The usual distinction divides "two-sided" Jacobi algorithms from "one-sided" ones. Kogbetliantz's algorithm is the canonical example of the "two-sided" methods, while Nash's method is the usual example for the "one-sided" methods. –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Oct 26 '11 at 7:07
In fact, though Jacobi might be quite slower than the QR approach, it can be shown that it gives more accurate results for some families of matrices. See these two papers by Zlatko Drmač and others for details. –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Oct 26 '11 at 7:15
@J.M.: very nice papers, indeed! The rank-detection preconditioner procedure by an initial QR-procedure mentioned in the first of the two papers reduces the time-consumtion of to 200x100-example from 60 to 7 seconds... :-) I'll add that precondition to my answer –  Gottfried Helms Oct 26 '11 at 7:49
Yes, it is indeed the case that performing a preliminary (pivoted) QR decomposition and then feeding the triangular factor to the Jacobi algorithm makes for better performance. :) –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Oct 26 '11 at 7:52
@J.M.: That two papers please me much, thanks again. It's too much to read them through today but luckily they require a level of understanding only such that I seem able to follow the core ideas :-) Well, I'd like to implement that optimization-ideas immediately into my MatMate-code, but probably may be, that this will happen in my next life ;-) I've still to chew that sources concerning the vandermonde interpolation which you made me aware of in the other thread and which seems again one of the sort which I'm able to go through. Multiple thanks again for this very kind support! –  Gottfried Helms Oct 26 '11 at 13:12

If you absolutely, genuinely, really, truly need to implement the singular value decomposition yourself (which I have already advised you not to do based on my reading of you), you will want to see the ALGOL code in Golub and Reinsch's classic paper. (Alternatively, see the EISPACK implementation.) There have been a lot of improvements to the basic two-part algorithm (bidiagonalize and apply a modified QR algorithm to the resulting bidiagonal matrix) since then, but not knowing your background in numerical linear algebra matters, I'll refrain from mentioning them for the time being.

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There is no finite algorithm for SVD, only numerical approximations. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_value_decomposition#Calculating_the_SVD.

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that is kind of not step by step... –  Kabumbus Oct 25 '11 at 21:11
@Kabumbus: lhf's point is that there are a bunch of canned methods for performing SVD, taking care of any subtleties you may not have had in mind. You really don't have and should never have a need to write your own program, unless you have expertise in numerical linear algebra. –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Oct 25 '11 at 23:09
@J.M., actually, my point was that there is no algorithm for SVD like there is for solving linear systems, e.g., Gaussian elimination. But the point you make is also important. –  lhf Oct 25 '11 at 23:13
Maybe if I give an inkling of how complicated the actual business is, I can scare the OP... :) –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Oct 25 '11 at 23:40

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