EVALUATION OF 2 FRACTAL METHODS FOR MAGNETOGRAM IMAGE-ANALYSIS

Fractal and multifractal techniques have been applied to various types of solar data to study the fractal properties of sunspots as well as the distribution of photospheric magnetic fields and the role of rando m motions on the solar surface in this distribution. Other research in cludes the investigation of changes in the fractal dimension as an ind icator for solar flares. Here we evaluate the efficacy of two methods for determining the fractal dimension of an image data set: the Differ ential Box Counting scheme and a new method, the Jaenisch scheme. To d etermine the sensitivity of the techniques to changes in image complex ity, Various types of constructed images are analyzed. In addition, we apply this method to solar magnetogram data from Marshall Space Fligh t Center's vector magnetograph.