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Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Wavelets
I'm on an email list for Csound, which is kind of a programming language for making music, and lately the people on there have been talking a bit about "wavelets". I'm pretty uneducated on the stuff, so I'm going to look stuff up on the internet about it and blog about it... because I think it's cool, even though you probably don't.
What are Wavelets?
Good question. According to this site, "Wavelets are mathematical functions that cut up data into different frequency components, and then study each component with a resolution matched to its scale. " Ahh, right. On the Csound list, they were talking about wavelets as they can be applied to sound manipulation. Because they're a way to take a sound and analyze it in terms of frequencies versus time, they allow you, once the analysis is complete, to do things like speed up a sound while maintaining the same frequencies (e.g. speed up a voice without making it sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks), or to change the pitch of a sound while not changing the speed of the sound. Hm, all that stuff doesn't belong in the "What are Wavelets?" section. Oh well, I already gave you a nice, vague definition
You know, now I'm reading the aforementioned site, and it's really interesting. I don't need to rehash it in my blog. Just go read it yourself. To tickle your pickle and float your boat, here are some interesting applications of WaVeLeTs!
- Computer Vision
- FBI Fingerprint Compression (they've got about 30 million sets of them!)
- Musical Synthesis
What are Wavelets?
Good question. According to this site, "Wavelets are mathematical functions that cut up data into different frequency components, and then study each component with a resolution matched to its scale. " Ahh, right. On the Csound list, they were talking about wavelets as they can be applied to sound manipulation. Because they're a way to take a sound and analyze it in terms of frequencies versus time, they allow you, once the analysis is complete, to do things like speed up a sound while maintaining the same frequencies (e.g. speed up a voice without making it sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks), or to change the pitch of a sound while not changing the speed of the sound. Hm, all that stuff doesn't belong in the "What are Wavelets?" section. Oh well, I already gave you a nice, vague definition
You know, now I'm reading the aforementioned site, and it's really interesting. I don't need to rehash it in my blog. Just go read it yourself. To tickle your pickle and float your boat, here are some interesting applications of WaVeLeTs!
- Computer Vision
- FBI Fingerprint Compression (they've got about 30 million sets of them!)
- Musical Synthesis
