The (uncentred, unnormalised)
  spatial covariance function of a pixel image $X$ in the plane
  is the function $C(v)$ defined for each vector $v$ as
  $$C(v) = \int X(u)X(u-v)\, {\rm d}u$$
  where the integral is
  over all spatial locations $u$, and where $X(u)$ denotes the
  pixel value at location $u$.
  
  This command computes a discretised approximation to
  the spatial covariance function, using the Fast Fourier Transform.
  The return value is
  another pixel image (object of class "im") whose greyscale values
  are values of the spatial covariance function.  If the argument Y is present, then imcov(X,Y)
  computes the set cross-covariance function $C(u)$
  defined as 
  $$C(v) = \int X(u)Y(u-v)\, {\rm d}u.$$
  Note that imcov(X,Y) is equivalent to
  convolve.im(X,Y,reflectY=TRUE).