Abstract
A simple practical method exists for classifying and comparing planar curves composed of connected line segments. This method assigns a single number D, the fractal dimension, to each curve. D =log( n)/[log( n) + log( d/L)],where: n is the number of line segments, L is the total length of the line segments, and d is the planar diameter of the curve (the greatest distance between any two endpoints). At one end of the spectrum, for straight line curves, D = 1; at the other end of the spectrum, for random walk curves, D→2. Standard statistics are done on the logarithms of the fractal dimension [log( D)]. With this measure, trails of biological movement, such as the growth paths of cells and the paths of wandering organisms, can be analyzed to determine the likelihood that these trails are random walks and also to compare the straightness of the trails before and after experimental interventions.
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