Image sieves

A sieve is a device for separating fine particles from coarse. We present methods for constructing analogous filters for images. These methods rely upon the discrete approximate signals of wavelet transform theory. Their sensitivity can be made flexible, allowing them to remove, entirely, objects outside a desired size range, or merely diminish their intensities. Possible applications for these filters include removing clutter and noise from images, isolating selected features in images, and as preprocessing for automatic target recognition (ATR) applications.