Simple comparison illustrating the differences between a Fourier transform (middle panel) and a CWT (bottom panel). Top: simple timevarying sinusoidal signal composed of successive pure sine waves at different frequencies, culminating in the final second where all three frequencies overlap. Signals of the same frequency have the same color. Middle: fast Fourier transform power spectrum of the signal, providing a single, time-averaged frequency-domain view. Bottom: continuous wavelet transformation scalogram of the same signal, showing how the power at each frequency component changes over time.