Given a mother scaling function
φt∈
ℒ
2
φ
t
ℒ
2
— the choice of which will be discussed later — let us construct
scaling functions at
"coarseness-level-k"k" and
"shift-nn" as follows:
φ
k
,
n
t=2−k2φ2−kt−n
.
φ
k
,
n
t
2
k
2
φ
2
k
t
n
.
Let us then use
V
k
V
k
to denote the subspace defined by linear combinations of
scaling functions at the
k
th
k
th
level:
V
k
=span
φ
k
,
n
t
n∈Z
.
V
k
span
φ
k
,
n
t
n
.
In the Haar system, for example,
V
0
V
0
and
V
1
V
1
consist of signals with the characteristics of
x
0
t
x
0
t
and
x
1
t
x
1
t
illustrated in Figure 1.
We will be careful to choose a scaling function
φt
φ
t
which ensures that the following nesting property
is satisfied:
…⊂
V
2
⊂
V
1
⊂
V
0
⊂
V
-1
⊂
V
-2
⊂…
…
V
2
V
1
V
0
V
-1
V
-2
…
coarse
detailed
coarse detailed
In other words, any signal in
V
k
V
k
can be constructed as a linear combination of more
detailed signals in
V
k
−
1
V
k
−
1
. (The Haar system gives proof that at least one such
φt
φ
t
exists.)
The nesting property can be depicted using the set-theoretic
diagram, Figure 2, where
V
−
1
V
−
1
is represented by the contents of the largest egg (which
includes the smaller two eggs),
V
0
V
0
is represented by the contents of the medium-sized egg (which
includes the smallest egg), and
V
1
V
1
is represented by the contents of the smallest egg.
Going further, we will assume that
φt
φ
t
is designed to yield the following three important
properties:
-
φ
k
,
n
t
n∈Z
φ
k
,
n
t
n
constitutes an orthonormal basis for
V
k
V
k
,
-
V
∞
=0
V
∞
0
(contains no signals).
-
V
−
∞
=
ℒ
2
V
−
∞
ℒ
2
(contains all signals).
Because
φ
k
,
n
t
n∈Z
φ
k
,
n
t
n
is an orthonormal basis, the best (in
ℒ
2
ℒ
2
norm) approximation of
xt∈
ℒ
2
x
t
ℒ
2
at coarseness-level-
kk is
given by the orthogonal projection,
Figure 3
x
k
t=∑n=−∞∞
c
k
,
n
φ
k
,
n
t
x
k
t
n
c
k
,
n
φ
k
,
n
t
(1)
c
k
,
n
=
φ
k
,
n
t · xt
c
k
,
n
φ
k
,
n
t
x
t
(2)
We will soon derive conditions on the scaling function
φt
φ
t
which ensure that the properties above are
satisfied.