Effects of despeckling on the estimation of fractal dimension from SAR images

The estimation of the fractal dimension of a natural surface using spectral analysis of amplitude SAR data is a powerful tool for geophysical applications. However, the obtained estimates are influenced by the presence of speckle. In this paper we present first results regarding the analysis of the effects on fractal dimension maps due to the application of despeckling techniques on SAR images. The use of simulated data allows to obtain also multilook images, presenting a very high number of looks, which should represent a virtually speckle-free image. In the results section different despeckling techniques are considered, relaying on both classical spatial filtering and non-local means. The presented results allow to draw meaningful conclusions on the effects of speckle and despeckling on spectral estimation and fractal dimension retrieving.