A comparison between generalized coherence factor and short-LAG spatial coherence methods

Typical ultrasound image beamforming is based on delay and sum of received echoes. Sound speed inhomogeneity, phase aberration and acoustic clutter induce errors in the beamformed signals. Therefore, coherence-based techniques such as Generalized Coherence Factor (GCF) and Short-lag Spatial Coherence (SLSC) have been developed to reduce these errors. GCF has been used as a weighting factor applied to the conventional image (b-mode), and SLSC has been used as a new standalone image. In this study, a new approach for comparison of both techniques is proposed by using GCF and SLSC as weighting factors and standalone images. Image contrast and contrast-to-noise (CNR) were evaluated to analyze the approaches´ performance.