  In adaptive optics, the measurement of spatial coherence length helps in
deciding the optimum design parameters of a Shack Hartmann Sensor (SHS). Two
methods of estimating the spatial coherence length of optical wavefronts are
presented. The first method is based on counting the number of Hough peaks in
the wavefront. The second method is based on a simple data mining technique
applied on the wavefronts. Optical wavefronts with different properties are
simulated and used for statistical analysis. A comparison of the performance of
the two methods is presented using Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that
both these methods can become efficient tools in estimating the effective
coherence length of optical wavefronts.
