The edge details in images involve significant visual perception information

which play an important role in the further image understanding and scene perception.An image edge detection and extraction method is presented based on the fractional differentiation theory aiming at solving the problems of inaccurate edge detection like fractal structures in the images by the traditional edge detection methods.Firstly

the inflexion points in the images are detected based on the characteristics of fractional differentiation;then

an image edge detail detection and extraction operator with sub-pixel interpolation is derived from the Grumwald-Letnikov (G-L) definition of fractional differentiation combining with the Lagrange interpolation polynomials.The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed operator is capable of extracting image edge details (inflexion points) efficiently.Furthermore

it is able to detect the useful object edge details from image with serious noise to achieve better visual effect.