A Graphical-User-Interface application for multifractal analysis of soil and plant structures

Multifractal systems are common in nature, and fractal theory has been applied to a large number of patterns for curves, surfaces and volumes in a variety of research domains. For instance, researchers in soil science recently applied multifractal analysis (MFA) to study porosity, which is linked to soil gas diffusion, water content and therefore, nutrient transportation for plants. The calculation of multifractal spectra (singularity, Renyi) is complex and the data can be 'big' and of various forms (graphical or numerical), yet the results are highly informative. An easy-to-use GUI-based (GUI: Graphical User Interface) application would allow researchers to concentrate on the results instead of having to deal with the technical aspects. This note fills the gap with the MFA application program, originally written in MATLAB and provided with a user's guide. Datasets on soil and plant structures (soil porosity, tree branching, biochar structure) are used in three examples, which help illustrate the variety of inputs with our MFA application, demonstrate its generality in performing the MFA method, and interpret the program outputs.