METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING AND IDENTIFYING MICROBIALCOLONIES

摘要

A method and system for detecting and identifying microbial colonies in an inoculated growth medium first acquires a first image of the inoculated growth medium (100). After a selected incubation time interval (110), a second image of the growth medium is acquired (100). A difference image is produced by taking the difference between corresponding pixels in the first and second images (112). Potential colonies are identified within the difference image by locating peak pixels having local maximum pixel intensities within the difference image and having decreasing gradients in a predetermined number of directions (118). The potential colonies are validated as actual colonies by eliminating those potential colonies that are noise spikes or noise around previously validated colonies (120).