ALGORITHM OF FRACTAL ANALYSIS OF CONTOURS IN TELEDETECTION AND APPLICATIONS

A remotely-sensed image represents natural objects with irregular shapes, some of which have fractal properties. During data processing the most often used methods of determining the fractal dimension are analysed according to objects of known dimension. A new method which improves the accuracy of previous techniques is then presented. This process can be used for specific applications in remote sensing; on the one hand for the determination of the dimension of natural reliefs observed from a satellite and on the other hand for the analysis of the degree of decay of diseased trees observed in aerial photographs. © 1990, Taylor & Francis LLC.