An orthonormal multiresolution analysis consists of closed subspaces of the L2 space with , dense union, intersection , and the dilation rule . A scaling function has integer translates forming an orthonormal basis of . Equivalently,
form an orthonormal basis of . Let . Density and the trivial intersection imply .
Nesting gives the scaling refinement equation , with the coefficients in the normalized finer-scale basis. Orthogonality of the translates gives . Its Fourier form is the quadrature mirror filter identity , where .
Set and define in . Its high-pass symbol is . The matrix
is unitary almost everywhere. Under the identification of with its finer-scale coefficient space, this two-channel unitary transform splits that space into the translates of and the translates of . The latter are therefore an orthonormal basis of . Dilating gives an orthonormal wavelet basis
This wavelet completion of a multiresolution filter explains how the multiresolution analysis supplies a single orthonormal wavelet. The argument uses coefficient-space completeness, not just pairwise orthogonality.