Table 2.

The lists of the most significant features detectable by the software FibroIndex™ is here reported. As an example of the sensitivity and performance of the software, we analyzed and compared two regions of interest (ROI, see Figure 6) respectively in the cartilage layer and in the hydrogel acellular scaffold.

Features	Description	ROI Cartilage	ROI Hydrogel
Sample Area ROI	Area of the whole tissue that was either automatically detected, or manually selected	22,438.57	22,438.57
Tissue Area	Area of tissue within the region of interest	4287.82	1890.21
Collagen Area ROI	Area of collagen within the region of interest	5714.49	0.31
Collagen Area Ratio	Relative amount of collagen compared to the total region of interest. The higher this number, the more collagen there is relative to the total region of interest.	25.47	0.00
Collagen Area Ratio in Tissue	Relative amount of collagen compared to the total tissue area. The higher this number, the more collagen there is relative to the total tissue area.	23.39	0.00
Tissue Area Ratio	Relative amount of tissue compared to the total region of interest. The higher this number, the more tissue there is relative to the total region of interest.	19.11	8.42
Collagen Fibres’ Number	Number of fibres per square millimeter	2782.60	1.00
Collagen Fibres’ Mean Thickness	Fibre mean thickness in micron	4.46	N.A.
Collagen Fibres’ Mean Length	Fibre mean length in micron	12.63	N.A.
Collagen Fibres’ Mean Straightness	Fibre mean straightness	79.71	N.A.
Collagen Fibres’ Orientation Variation	Measure of the variation of the orientation from the collagen fibres orientation distribution. A low value means fibres tend to be oriented in the same direction. 100% means the fibres’ orientation variation is maximized. i.e., fibres orientation is scattered	44.52	N.A.
Collagen Reticulation Index	A measure of how many collagen fibre branches there are within the entire length of the collagen network	4.17	N.A.