COUNTING BIOLOGICAL AGENTS ON BIOLOGICAL GROWTH PLATES

摘要

The invention is directed to counting techniques for counting biological agents on a biological growth plate or similar medium. In order to automate the counting of biological agents, a biological growth plate is inserted int o a biological scanning unit. Upon insertion of the biological growth plate, t he biological scanning unit generates an image of the plate. Then, the amount o f biological agents that appear in the image, such as a number of bacteria colonies, can be counted or otherwise determined using image processing and analysis routines performed either by the scanning unit or an external computing device, such as a desktop computer, workstation or the like. A variety of counting rules are described herein that can be used to improve t he accuracy of automated counts of biological agents on a biological growth pla te.