Finding the right wavelet for image compression: on the relevance of criteria

Finding the right wavelet is a crucial problem in wavelet-based image compression. Several criteria for choosing the right wavelet have been presented during the last years, but have never been evaluated together under equivalent conditions. We review some of them, present one additional criterion, the shift variance of compressed impulses, and show the results of an extensive evaluation using parameterized orthonormal wavelet filters of lengths 4, 6 and 8. We can show that under these conditions only few of the proposed criteria prove relevant.