1. A system for optically generating expansion coefficients for a wavelet representation of an image, said image comprising a series of wavelet functions, comprising: first optical means for providing an optical representation of said image; second optical means for Fourier transforming said optical representation of said image; third optical means for optically providing a Fourier transform of a convolving function of said wavelet functions; fourth optical means for providing an optical product of the Fourier transform of said image and the Fourier transform of said convolving function of said wavelet functions; fifth optical means for optically transforming said product to provide a spatial intensity distribution representative of the expansion coefficients of said wavelet representation of said image on optical detector array, said detector array responsive to said spatial intensity distribution for generating electrical signals corresponding to said intensity distribution which are representative of the expansion coefficients of said wavelet representation of said image; and means for storing said electrical signals as a wavelet representation of said image.