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The fourier duck began in the book Optical transforms, their preparation and application to X-ray diffraction problems by C. A. Taylor and H. Lipson. The old school, 1966 book review contains a brief history on the subject. The first time that I met the duck online was in Kevin Cowtan’s Book of Fourier.

I came across the site Diffraction and Fourier Transform via twitter (@olchemist) and in Web 2.0 style decided to draw my own.

The site loads and you are given a brush to draw on the left panel then click FFT (center). Once you have the basic idea then try adjusting various components such as cell parameters, masking and the draw function. In addition, you can display how the components of complex, magnitude and phase contribute to the resulting pattern.

Enjoy.