Time series of SAR image fractal maps

In this paper the analysis of time series of fractal dimension maps generated from multi-pass SAR images is dealt with. The objective is twofold: on the one hand such an analysis is addressed to assess the performance of the algorithm for the fractal dimension estimation from a single SAR image, i.e., to verify the fractal estimation efficiency on natural scenes within the multiple sensor passes. On the other hand, by exploiting the statistics evaluated starting from the fractal time series, a final fractal dimension map, including only the areas in which the fractal estimation is efficient and strongly denoised from the speckle effect, is obtained. The analysis has been performed on a Cosmo-SkyMed data-set of 42 stripmap images spanning the time period from October 2009 to December 2012, acquired over the Somma-Vesuvius volcanic complex (South Italy), which is in a quiescent stage since the last eruption occurred in 1944.