The Decision
Wavelets are now used
everyday by the FBI and a large fraction of the police force in the U.S. to
process fingerprints. It was one of the
first really exciting applications of wavelets. One advantage of using wavelets is that they use a global
approach, and not a block-by-block approach.
In the use for the FBI, where image quality is the preeminent concern,
wavelet transform coding was the superior choice.
The FBI chose wavelets as
their compression standard because images compressed using wavelets allow the
image to first be described using only the coarse features, and then fill in
the tiny details. This is very similar
to how a camera zooming lens operates.
First the entire scene or landscape can be seen through the lens. Once the zooming in begins, certain areas
can be concentrated on and become the center of the focus.