HIGH ORDER FRACTAL FEATURE EXTRACTION FOR CLASSIFICATION OF OBJECTS IN IMAGES

A method of identifying and classifying pre-detected target candidates in an image using pixel intensity and a fractalization process applied to the image. A raw analog image is digitized and normalized. The normalized pixel intensity content of the image is converted to fractal dimensions using a small and a large fractal box, sequentially. An array of special fractal features satisfying predetermined classification thresholds is prepared from the fractal dimensions for each box centered about each pre-detected target candidate in the image, thus classifying the detected objects as targets.