Monofractal, multifractals, and self-affine fractals in urban studies
Received date: 2018-02-25
Request revised date: 2018-07-06
Online published: 2019-01-22
Supported by
National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41671167.
Copyright
Fractal geometry provides a powerful tool for scale-free spatial modeling and analyses in geography. However, a number of basic concepts are puzzling. The three common fractals, that is, monofractal (unifractal), multifractals, and self-affine fractal, are often misunderstood by students of geography. This article clarifies some confusing fractal concepts for urban fractal modeling and fractal dimension analysis. Using simple mathematical models based on three growing fractals that bear an analogy to urban growth, we can distinguish the three types of common fractal structure. The similarities and differences between monofractal, multifractals, and self-affine fractal are as follows: 1) A monofractal is a simple self-similar fractal that bears only one scaling factor (scaling ratio), and a multifractal object is a complex fractal system that bears at least two scaling factors for different parts. Each scaling factor dominates all different scales and is independent of directions and levels. 2) A self-affine fractal bears different scaling factors in different directions of growth or at different levels of scales. The basic feature of self-affine growing fractal is anisotropy, which differs from the isotropic self-similar growing fractals. 3) Both self-affine fractal and multifractals may possess two scaling factors, but there are essential differences between self-affine fractals and multifractals. A self-affine fractal often takes on the form of bi-fractals, which can be reflected by two scaling ranges on a log-log plot. However, there is only one scaling range for a multifractal pattern. As an example, two-scaling fractal modeling is applied to the rank-size distributions of cities to illustrate the concept of urban multifractals. By comparison with these multifractal models, we can better understand monofractals and self-affine fractals in geographical research.
CHEN Yanguang . Monofractal, multifractals, and self-affine fractals in urban studies[J]. PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY, 2019 , 38(1) : 38 -49 . DOI: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2019.01.004
Fig.1 A regular self-similar growing fractal that bears an analogy to isotropic urban growth (the first four steps)图1 用作各向同性城市生长模型的Vicsek自相似分形(前4步) |
Fig.2 A regular self-affine growing fractal that bears an analogy to anisotropic urban growth (the first four steps)图2 用作类比各向异性城市生长的Vicsek自仿射分形(前4步) |
Fig.3 A growing multifractals that bears an analogy to complex urban growth (the first three steps)图3 用于类比复杂城市生长的Vicsek多分形(前3步) |
Tab.1 Partial values of the global and local parameters of growing multifractals表1 生长多分形的全局参数和局部参数谱(典型数值) |
矩的阶次q | 全局参数 | 局部参数 | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dq | τ(q) | α(q) | f(α(q)) | ||
-∞ | 1.7604 | -∞ | 1.7604 | 0 | |
-100 | 1.7429 | -176.0374 | 1.7604 | 0 | |
-2 | 1.6054 | -4.8161 | 1.6153 | 1.5855 | |
-1 | 1.6022 | -3.2044 | 1.6081 | 1.5963 | |
0 | 1.5995 | 1.5995 | 1.6020 | 1.5995 | |
1 | 1.5970 | 0 | 1.5970 | 1.5970 | |
2 | 1.5949 | 1.5949 | 1.5930 | 1.5910 | |
100 | 1.5798 | 156.3975 | 1.5791 | 1.5129 | |
∞ | 1.5791 | ∞ | 1.5791 | 0 |
注:加粗数字表示分形参数极限值,下同。 |
Tab.2 Partial values of the global and local parameters of the urban multifractals on rank-size distributions表2 城市规模分布分形的全局参数和局部参数谱(p=0.6,部分数值) |
矩的阶次q | 全局参数 | 局部参数 | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dq | τ(q) | α(q) | f(α(q)) | ||
-∞ | 1.3219 | -∞ | 1.3219 | 0 | |
-50 | 1.2960 | -66.0964 | 1.3219 | 0 | |
-2 | 1.0581 | -3.1744 | 1.1419 | 0.8905 | |
-1 | 1.0294 | -2.0589 | 1.0879 | 0.9710 | |
0 | 1.0000 | -1.0000 | 1.0294 | 1.0000 | |
1 | 0.9710 | 0.9710 | 0.9710 | 0.9710 | |
2 | 0.9434 | 0.9434 | 0.9170 | 0.8905 | |
50 | 0.7520 | 36.8483 | 0.7370 | 0 | |
∞ | 0.7370 | ∞ | 0.7370 | 0 |
Fig.4 Dimension spectrums of multifractals rank-size distribution of cities and curves of related parameters (p=0.6)图4 城市位序-规模分布的多分维谱和相关参数谱(p=0.6) |
Fig.5 The f(α) curves of the local dimension v.s. the singularity exponent (p=0.6)图5 城市位序-规模分布的奇异性指数-局部分维单峰曲线(p=0.6) |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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