A simple method for estimating the fractal dimension from digital images: The compression dimension

The fractal structure of real world objects is often analyzed using digital [login to view URL] this context, the compression fractal dimension is put forward. It provides a simplemethod for the direct estimation of the dimension of fractals stored as digital image [login to view URL] computational scheme can be implemented using readily available free software. Itssimplicity also makes it very interesting for introductory elaborations of basic concepts offractal geometry, complexity, and information theory. A test of the computational schemeusing limited-quality images of well-defined fractal sets obtained from the Internet andfree software has been performed. Also, a systematic evaluation of the proposed methodusing computer generated images of the Weierstrass cosine function shows an accuracycomparable to those of the meth- ods most commonly used to estimate the dimension offractal data sequences applied to the same test problem