Qualitative comparison of speckle image processing techniques for vein detection in plant leaf tissue

In this paper, we assess the quality of three speckle image processing techniques - namely Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging (LSCI), Fuji method and Generalised Differences (GD) - in the detection of veins in various plant leaves. We develop a simple NIR laser speckle imaging set-up and find that the Fuji algorithm is best suited for producing highly contrasted and spatially resolved veins in leaf tissue, with the LSCI algorithm producing lower resolution results and GD failing to locate fine vascular structure. Determining the practicality of various speckle image processing techniques for vein detection aides future research for possible subcutaneous blood flow detection in non-invasive biomedical applications.