An efficient point spread function construction method

PSF construction is a fundamental tool for performance assessment of astronomical instrumentation, usually implemented by Fourier transform techniques. We review the numerical implementation, evaluating a direct implementation of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) algorithm, compared with standard FFT tools. Simulations show that the precision is quite comparable, but in the case considered the computing performance is considerably higher for DFT than FFT. The application to image simulation for the mission Gaia and for Extremely Large Telescopes is discussed.