The Interstellar Medium seems to have an underlying fractal structure , which can be characterized through its fractal dimension ( D _ { f } ) .
However , several factors may affect the determination of D _ { f } , such as distortions due to projection , low image resolution , opacity of the cloud , and low signal-to-noise ratio .
Here we use both simulated clouds and real molecular cloud maps to study these effects in order to estimate D _ { f } in a reliable way .
Our results indicate in a self-consistent way that the fractal dimension of the Interstellar Medium is in the range 2.6 \lesssim D _ { f } \lesssim 2.8 , which is significantly higher than the value D _ { f } \simeq 2.3 usually assumed in the literature .