I have a 1D signal and I have done wavelet packet decomposition on it which is giving several sub-bands. Can I stack these sub-bands (one below other) to form a 2D matrix and hence an image representation of that 1D signal?
Yes, 1D signal's Wavelet decomposition packets or sub-bands can be used to form a 2D matrix or 2D representation as an image. But it's depend on selection of packets and desired information in different bands.
It will be desired able because humans being processes visual data better than temporal data. A visual image is rich in information. It is rightly told by Confucius that “A picture is worth a thousand words”.
Yes, you can convert 1-D signal (wave) to 3_D signal (image) using reshape( , , ) function in matlab program. After that you can use wavelet decomposition pockets to image using DWT2( , , ) function in matlab program.