C++ eigenvalue/vector decomposition, only need first n vectors fast - c++

Question

I have a ~3000x3000 covariance-alike matrix on which I compute the eigenvalue-eigenvector decomposition (it's a OpenCV matrix, and I use cv::eigen() to get the job done).
However, I actually only need the, say, first 30 eigenvalues/vectors, I don't care about the rest. Theoretically, this should allow to speed up the computation significantly, right? I mean, that means it has 2970 eigenvectors less that need to be computed.
Which C++ library will allow me to do that? Please note that OpenCV's eigen() method does have the parameters for that, but the documentation says they are ignored, and I tested it myself, they are indeed ignored :D
UPDATE:
I managed to do it with ARPACK. I managed to compile it for windows, and even to use it. The results look promising, an illustration can be seen in this toy example:
#include "ardsmat.h"
#include "ardssym.h"
int n = 3; // Dimension of the problem.
double* EigVal = NULL; // Eigenvalues.
double* EigVec = NULL; // Eigenvectors stored sequentially.
int lowerHalfElementCount = (n*n+n) / 2;
//whole matrix:
/*
2 3 8
3 9 -7
8 -7 19
*/
double* lower = new double[lowerHalfElementCount]; //lower half of the matrix
//to be filled with COLUMN major (i.e. one column after the other, always starting from the diagonal element)
lower[0] = 2; lower[1] = 3; lower[2] = 8; lower[3] = 9; lower[4] = -7; lower[5] = 19;
//params: dimensions (i.e. width/height), array with values of the lower or upper half (sequentially, row major), 'L' or 'U' for upper or lower
ARdsSymMatrix<double> mat(n, lower, 'L');
// Defining the eigenvalue problem.
int noOfEigVecValues = 2;
//int maxIterations = 50000000;
//ARluSymStdEig<double> dprob(noOfEigVecValues, mat, "LM", 0, 0.5, maxIterations);
ARluSymStdEig<double> dprob(noOfEigVecValues, mat);
// Finding eigenvalues and eigenvectors.
int converged = dprob.EigenValVectors(EigVec, EigVal);
for (int eigValIdx = 0; eigValIdx < noOfEigVecValues; eigValIdx++) {
std::cout << "Eigenvalue: " << EigVal[eigValIdx] << "\nEigenvector: ";
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
int idx = n*eigValIdx+i;
std::cout << EigVec[idx] << " ";
}
std::cout << std::endl;
}
The results are:
9.4298, 24.24059
for the eigenvalues, and
-0.523207, -0.83446237, -0.17299346
0.273269, -0.356554, 0.893416
for the 2 eigenvectors respectively (one eigenvector per row)
The code fails to find 3 eigenvectors (it can only find 1-2 in this case, an assert() makes sure of that, but well, that's not a problem).

Answer 1

In this article, Simon Funk shows a simple, effective way to estimate a singular value decomposition (SVD) of a very large matrix. In his case, the matrix is sparse, with dimensions: 17,000 x 500,000.
Now, looking here, describes how eigenvalue decomposition closely related to SVD. Thus, you might benefit from considering a modified version of Simon Funk's approach, especially if your matrix is sparse. Furthermore, your matrix is not only square but also symmetric (if that is what you mean by covariance-like), which likely leads to additional simplification.
... Just an idea :)

Answer 2

It seems that Spectra will do the job with good performances.
Here is an example from their documentation to compute the 3 first eigen values of a dense symmetric matrix M (likewise your covariance matrix):
#include <Eigen/Core>
#include <Spectra/SymEigsSolver.h>
// <Spectra/MatOp/DenseSymMatProd.h> is implicitly included
#include <iostream>
using namespace Spectra;
int main()
{
// We are going to calculate the eigenvalues of M
Eigen::MatrixXd A = Eigen::MatrixXd::Random(10, 10);
Eigen::MatrixXd M = A + A.transpose();
// Construct matrix operation object using the wrapper class DenseSymMatProd
DenseSymMatProd<double> op(M);
// Construct eigen solver object, requesting the largest three eigenvalues
SymEigsSolver< double, LARGEST_ALGE, DenseSymMatProd<double> > eigs(&op, 3, 6);
// Initialize and compute
eigs.init();
int nconv = eigs.compute();
// Retrieve results
Eigen::VectorXd evalues;
if(eigs.info() == SUCCESSFUL)
evalues = eigs.eigenvalues();
std::cout << "Eigenvalues found:\n" << evalues << std::endl;
return 0;
}