optimization - Fast transcendent / trigonometric functions for Java

Question

Since the trigonometric functions in java.lang.Math are quite slow: is there a library that does a quick and good approximation? It seems possible to do a calculation several times faster without losing much precision. (On my machine a multiplication takes 1.5ns, and java.lang.Math.sin 46ns to 116ns). Unfortunately there is not yet a way to use the hardware functions.

UPDATE: The functions should be accurate enough, say, for GPS calculations. That means you would need at least 7 decimal digits accuracy, which rules out simple lookup tables. And it should be much faster than java.lang.Math.sin on your basic x86 system. Otherwise there would be no point in it.

For values over pi/4 Java does some expensive computations in addition to the hardware functions. It does so for a good reason, but sometimes you care more about the speed than for last bit accuracy.

Answer 1

Computer Approximations by Hart. Tabulates Chebyshev-economized approximate formulas for a bunch of functions at different precisions.

Edit: Getting my copy off the shelf, it turned out to be a different book that just sounds very similar. Here's a sin function using its tables. (Tested in C since that's handier for me.) I don't know if this will be faster than the Java built-in, but it's guaranteed to be less accurate, at least. :) You may need to range-reduce the argument first; see John Cook's suggestions. The book also has arcsin and arctan.

#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>

// Return an approx to sin(pi/2 * x) where -1 <= x <= 1.
// In that range it has a max absolute error of 5e-9
// according to Hastings, Approximations For Digital Computers.
static double xsin (double x) {
  double x2 = x * x;
  return ((((.00015148419 * x2
             - .00467376557) * x2
            + .07968967928) * x2
           - .64596371106) * x2
          + 1.57079631847) * x;
}

int main () {
  double pi = 4 * atan (1);
  printf ("%.10f
", xsin (0.77));
  printf ("%.10f
", sin (0.77 * (pi/2)));
  return 0;
}