Automatic classification of lung tissue patterns in high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) images of patients affected with interstitial lung diseases (ILD) is an important stage in the construction of a computer-aided diagnosis system. In this study, classification of Jung tissue patterns was conducted using a new machine learning approach. The proposed system comprises three stages. In the first stage, the parenchyma region in HRCT lung images is separated using a set of thresholding, filtering and morphological operators. In the second stage, two sets of overcomplete wavelet filters, namely discrete wavelet frames and rotated wavelet frames are utilized to extract the features from the defined regions of interest (ROJs) within parenchyma. Then, in the third stage, the fuzzy k-nearest neighbor algorithm is employed to perform the pattern classification. Our experiments in lung pattern classification were rendered on four different lung tissue patterns (ground glass, honey combing, reticular, and normal) selected from a database of 340 images from 17 subjects. After applying the technique to classify these patterns in small ROis, we extended the classification scheme to the whole lung in order to produce the quantitative scores of abnormalities in lung parenchyma of the patients. The performance of the proposed method was compared with two state-of-the-art computer based methods for lung tissue characterization. It was also validated against the experienced observers. The average kappa statistic of agreement between two radiologists and the computer was found to be 0.6543 where as the average kappa statistic for the interobserver agreement was 0.6848. This computer system can approach the performance of the expert observers in the diagnosing regions of interest and can help to produce objective measures of abnormal patterns in lung HRCT images.