Section: Software and Platforms

FracLab

Participants : Paul Balança, Jacques Lévy Véhel [correspondant] .

FracLab was developed for two main purposes:

1. propose a general platform allowing research teams to avoid the need to re-code basic and advanced techniques in the processing of signals based on (local) regularity.

2. provide state of the art algorithms allowing both to disseminate new methods in this area and to compare results on a common basis.

FracLab is a general purpose signal and image processing toolbox based on fractal, multifractal and local regularity methods. FracLab can be approached from two different perspectives:

• (multi-) fractal and local regularity analysis: A large number of procedures allow to compute various quantities associated with 1D or 2D signals, such as dimensions, Hölder and 2-microlocal exponents or multifractal spectra.

• Signal/Image processing: Alternatively, one can use FracLab directly to perform many basic tasks in signal processing, including estimation, detection, denoising, modeling, segmentation, classification, and synthesis.

A graphical interface makes FracLab easy to use and intuitive. In addition, various wavelet-related tools are available in FracLab.

FracLab is a free software. It mainly consists of routines developed in MatLab or C-code interfaced with MatLab. It runs under Linux, MacOS and Windows environments. In addition, a “stand-alone” version (i.e. which does not require MatLab to run) is available.

Fraclab has been downloaded several thousands of times in the last years by users all around the world. A few dozens laboratories seem to use it regularly, with more than four hundreds registered users. Our ambition is to make it the standard in fractal softwares for signal and image processing applications. We have signs that this is starting to become the case. To date, its use has been acknowledged in roughly three hundreds research papers in various areas such as astrophysics, chemical engineering, financial modeling, fluid dynamics, internet and road traffic analysis, image and signal processing, geophysics, biomedical applications, computer science, as well as in mathematical studies in analysis and statistics (see http://fraclab.saclay.inria.fr/ for a partial list with papers). In addition, we have opened the development of FracLab so that other teams worldwide may contribute. Additions have been made by groups in Australia, England, France, the USA, and Serbia.

Last year, we produced a major release of FracLab (version 2.1). This year, we corrected a number of bugs.