We present a method to estimate the multifractal spectrum of point distributions. The method incorporates two motivated criteria (barycentric pivot point selection and nonoverlapping coverage) in order to reduce edge effects, improve precision, and reduce computation time. Implementation of the method on synthetic benchmarks demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed method compared with existing alternatives routinely used in the literature. Finally, we use the method to estimate the multifractal properties of the widely studied growth process of diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) and compare our results with recent and earlier studies. Our tests support the conclusion of a genuine but weak multifractality of the central core of DLA clusters, with $D_q$ decreasing from 1.75±0.01 for $q=-10$ to 1.65±0.01 for $q$  $=$+10.

• Received 29 May 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.88.022922