"Multiscale computing (MSC) involves the computation, manipulation, and analysis of information at different resolution levels. Widespread use of MSC algorithms and the discovery of important relationships between different approaches to implementation were catalyzed, in part, by the recent interest in wavelets. We present two examples that demonstrate how MSC can help scientists understand complex data. The first is from acoustical signal processing and the second is from computer graphics."

This is a preprint edition of an article set to appear in a future issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Seciences (www.pnas.org). Full text is available in HTML and PDF. Authors include researchers from IBM Tokyo Research, NTT, and Bell Labs.