Fractal and multifractal characteristics of very high resolution satellite images

Abstract

In our work we analyse fractal and multifractal characteristics for description and extraction of information from very high spatial resolution satellite images. In particular, we propose the degree of multifractality as a parameter for extraction of four land cover types and investigate its usefulness in comparison with the fractal dimension. Results show that degree of multifractality designated for individual fragments of images differs depending on the present land cover type. The highest multifractality level is observed for urban area, the lowest for water, which can be treated as a monofractal. In general multifractal parameter allows for automatic assignment of land cover types to specific classes. Some deviations take place in case of discrimination between agricultural areas and forests. This problem is also considered by using additional measures during the process of multifractal parameter computation. Conducted analysis shows that multifractal formalism creates additional possibilities for the description and automatic classification of satellite images.